Pollution Of Space

POLLUTION OF SPACE

In my article titled “Village versus City’, I have tried to highlight the efforts by a few determined villagers to defy the attempts by the city folks to pollute their village by dumping the waste produced at the city.

Here I would like to highlight one other area being heavily polluted by the human race – the Space. According to a study by US Space Agency NASA, more than five lakh pieces of debris, such as spent rocket stages, broken satellites etc, are there above us orbiting the earth in their dead tracks.

The mankind has already done whatever they could ‘do’ to make this beautiful planet a place unworthy for living for their future generations by polluting it by mindless and unscientific advancement in the filed of ‘science and technology’. Each day of this ‘advancement’, as they call it, in the field of science and technology would only bring this planet very closer to its ‘untimely’ destruction. The scientific and technological advancements of the present age have already lost its original aim - the aim to help humanity to inhabit this planet more comfortably. The original aim being lost, the aim of these once sacred fields has now been replaced, as it now appears, to making this planet totally uninhabitable for the mankind at the earliest possible time. Alas, nothing, it seems, can be done even to pacify, leave alone preventing, its maddening rush to reach its new found goal, since it is done in the name of ‘scientific and technological advancement’! There are still a handful of ‘human beings’ across the world with guts and gusto in expressing their heartfelt anguish over this maddening rush. But there voices are neither not taken with the required level of seriousness it is worth, or disregarded as ‘musings of persons with a motive to prevent scientific and technological advancement’. And in certain cases these concerned voices are stifled by using strong arm tactics by the powers that be.

Now the so called scientific and technological advancements have started leaving its ‘identity’ even in the space! It is polluting the space above our planet in the name of ‘space exploration’. The fight for supremacy in the space by the two super powers USA and USSR (now Russia) propelled the pollution of the space and the advent of the IT era made things more worse. Since 1957, numerous explorations of the satellites of the earth and sun have left the space a graveyard of spent rocket stages, broken man made satellites etc. By now a few more numbers of them must have been added to the estimation of NASA of the number of debris presently on the orbit i.e. nearly five lakhs – and more numbers are going to be added in the days to come!

The situation is alarming, but nobody really cares. May be it is because of the fact that the ill effects of the space pollution have not yet become apparent. Or may be we donot have enough time to tackle this danger looming on our heads since we have a plethora of such issues to deal with on the ground level!

I would like to say that space is so vast a few burnt up thrusters and some junk satalites are not serious cause for concern and in the vast cosmos not a really large amount of trash when you consider how much room is out there. Of course, I'm sure the humans on this planet over 100 years ago probably said the same thing about the earth itself. None of the junk that is out there floating around is large enough to cause the destruction of the earth if and when it falls back down. Now granted, I wouldn't want it to land on my head, but as far as massive destruction to the planet, that's not going to happen. Most of it will burn up in the atmosphere as it comes back down anyway. I don't think the original aim of science and technoligy was ever the aim to help humanity to inhabit this planet more comfortably. It had nothing to do with saving the planet. It has always been about making things easier for humans, no more lofty goals than that. Other than of course, the limited reasearch that has been done strictly for inviormmental purposes. There has been in recent years a fair amount of that going on, but it was not the original intent of the scientific community. Science has been pretty busy making smaller computers and cell phones, more crops growing on less land, drugs for illness, that sort of thing.Now personally, I would think that as much as it costs to get that junk up there, if they were smart they'd gather it all up and use it for spare parts at the space station, since it's already up there. Might even come in handy. They need a big recycling bin floating near the space station. Of course, you would need a shuttle or some type of space craft to gather it all up and since the USA has retired all it's shuttles, there aren't as many ways to get around in outerspace. I suspect your right about one thing, we have so many problems here on earth nobody's really concerned about space junk these days. Ad I think it would probably be prudent to take care of the problems here before tackling the space polution thing.

You may have missed some facts when you say that “space is so vast a few burnt up thrusters and some junk satellites are not serious cause for concern and in the vast cosmos not a really large amount of trash when you consider how much room is out there” since these space junk, I quote from an article I happen to read in Internet,

“circle the earth in orbits as near as 150 miles (240 kilometers) to 22,500 miles (36,200 kilometers) away. Satellites in low orbit aka LEO stay within 500 miles (800 kilometers) and travel extremely fast—17,000 miles an hour (27,400 kilometers an hour) or more—to keep from being drawn back into Earth's atmosphere. Most satellites around Earth are found in the LEO range. Other objects are sent much farther into space and placed in what is called geosynchronous orbit. This allows the satellite to match the Earth's rotation and "hover" over the same spot at all times. Weather and television satellites are generally in this category.”

The vast space has no doubt is so spacious that anything can fit into it because everything that has been created is and have to be within it. But the space under the purview of the subject under discussion is limited to just above the earth. With regard to your assumption that it is “not a matter of serious cause of concern”, I would like to quote again from the article I have mentioned above;

“NASA and other national space agencies have identified orbital debris as a serious problem and are currently devising plans to mitigate existing space junk and curb future debris”.

Therefore, the pollution by space junk above our planet is a matter of serious concern. The effects may not be apparent as of now. But it is sure to bring its share of catastrophes to add to the plethora of catastrophes that presently exist on the planet as the aftermaths of the irrational application of science and technology.

 

 

With regards to your concept about science I would like the great Albert Einstein himself to clarify it; He says

“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”

The present day scientists makes us believe that more and more and more are required to lead a happy life on this planet. Is not it? He further says

“Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.”

Do you think the technological advancement of the present times has any real concern for man and his fate? I fail to see any real concern.

Space pollution varies from orbital space satellites to paint chips.Until now, space pollution hasn't turned out to be a significant risk to us, people of earth. With the rise in the amount of satellites, probes space pollution is likewise growing day by day.There are numerous forms of pollution in our ecosystem: water pollution , air pollution , noise pollution , and more. After the satellite accident in 2009, NASA and the U.S army started to look at the problem of space pollution considerably more seriously. Frequently we mention the harmful effects of water pollution, air pollution, noise pollution and radio active pollution etc but a growing worry for the scientists is now about ‘space pollution’. Sadly, no efficient functional methods are present right now to protect against space pollution at altitudes greater than 600 kilometers, where the cleaning-up influence of atmospheric drag on a satellite is missing. Like Earth pollution Half a century earlier, government authorities appear to be beginning to recognize that space pollution may have a genuine effect on the future of space exploration and therefore, to avoid difficulties down the road, something has to be done concerning this now. Rocket launches do contaminate the climate, but there are actually so very few that it's not an issue.I am certain that we will take the easy way out and somehow push the garbage further into space, thinking that till we have the technology to get there we will easily take care of the problem.

I don't think the original aim of science and technoligy was ever the aim to help humanity to inhabit this planet more comfortably. It had nothing to do with saving the planet. It has always been about making things easier for humans, no more lofty goals than that. Other than of course, the limited reasearch that has been done strictly for inviormmental purposes. There has been in recent years a fair amount of that going on, but it was not the original intent of the scientific community. Science has been pretty busy making smaller computers and cell phones, more crops growing on less land, drugs for illness, that sort of thing.

While I do agree with this, to a point, I also believe that those reasons are just a small part of why we've been doing space exploration. It's more along the lines of learning more about ourselves. Learning about the possibility of other life, learning why things work the way they do, seeing new and previously unseen things, etc.

Other things, such as satellites, come as a result of the true goal: exploration and knowledge. So while we definitely would not have these things without going into space, they are more like secondary benefits.

Its really nice to bring in attention of the forum visitors to a very important and a serious issue like this.I many a time wonder that at such a huge pace if every country on this earth launches their own satellite in the geosynchronous orbits what would happen to the space out there which is becoming overburdened and polluted with our attempts to explore space .Then comes the attempts by NASA to explore alternative planets where genesis of life can be found.Then comes war of supremacy between superpowers as pointed out by Vivek2012.Its true that there is a vast space above but if studies reveal such staggering figures of orbital debris today.This will continue in the coming future also.This won't end until the whole of human community becomes extinct.So at this stage when we are thinking about pollution of earth so seriously its time that we must draw our attention towards the space pollution.

Its not that we should relinquish all our efforts to explore space.But we can keep a limit to it.The biggest problem of our human race is we know just the word progress.But if that very progress is degrading and deteriorating every thing around us we can’t still just switch over. If you just see the pollution of this planet.We are exploiting the resources of that very planet which is the only home and hearth of our human community and by degrading its resources we are cutting the very branch of the tree on which we ourselves are sitting.

I personally do not have strong opinions about the issue, which I have heard before. I think if you are very concerned about the potential problems, bring it up from time to time and debate with those who do not agree with you. Doing that will raise the awareness level of the issue. Over time, more and more people will participate and the pros and cons will become clearer. If it becomes apparent that actions are required, the issue will be dealt with.At this point, not enough is known to the public.