William Atkins
Friday, 13 February 2009 21:42
Science -
Space
Page 5 of 6
AstronomyCast.com states,
“We're polluting every corner of our own planet, so it only makes sense that we'll take our trashy habits out into space with us…. we look at the myriad of ways we're messing up space, from the trash orbiting the planet to the radiation we're leaking out into space.”
Over 40,000 people in the United States are killed each and every year from motor vehicle accidents.
Over all of the Earth, The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that, in 1998, 1,170,694 people died
“as a direct result of injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident.” [SafeCarGuide.com: "
International Injury & Fatality Statistics"]
Thus, it is probably safe to say that well over 1.1 million people annually die from motor vehicles accidents each year on Earth. So far no one has been killed as a result from an object orbiting in our space highways.
However, no doubt, some day in the future we could likely have one or more astronauts injured, or possibly even killed, from a collision with some space junk, while on a spacewalk, inside their space vehicle, or other such activity in space.
We might even have someone killed on Earth from falling space debris. The chances are tiny that anyone on Earth will be hit, but the chance still exists.
Ideas have been developed to reduce the amount of space junk out there in space. Read the Space.com article "
Wanted: Ideas for Clearing Space Trash."
Page six concludes with a call for a civil space traffic control system from the Secure World Founcation.
