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	Space debris - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Space debris or orbital debris, also called space junk and space waste, are the objects in orbit around Earth created by humans that no longer serve any useful purpose.
		Most of those unusual objects have re-entered the atmosphere of the Earth within weeks due to the orbits they were released at and their small sizes.
		Minutes later, Williams was hit in the shoulder by a 6-inch flened metal object that was later confirmed to be part of the fuel tank of a Delta II rocket which had launched a U.S. Air Force satellite in 1996.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Space_junk (1200 words)

	New Scientist Breaking News - 'Space sheepdogs' could round up space junk (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		Most of the junk is accounted for by a relatively small number of large items such as spent launchers and dead satellites, which are easy to track and avoid.
		In some orbits, a chain reaction is under way: fragments from past collisions are becoming involved in more collisions, generating more fragments, and so on.
		He suggests using the momentum of a large mass of collected junk to boost the orbit of a working spacecraft by transferring momentum from the junk to the spacecraft.
	www.newscientist.com /article.ns?id=dn3268 (600 words)

	JunkTalk (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		For lifting freight from the Earth to higher orbits, large mass will make most of the orbit change in the payload, with only minor changes to the orbit of the lifting station.
		The Orbit, Apogee, and Launch (rows 6-8 in table 1) were an effort to estimate the velocity a conventional orbiter needs to get into a 160-km altitude orbit.
		Some of the cleanup junk could be tossed toward GEO, to serve as inertial mass for the second tether.
	spacetethers.com /junkman (2318 words)

	Recycling Space Junk (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		Junk mass in low Earth orbit (up to the altitude of 2000 kilometers) is about 2000 tons.
		Junk in the geostationary orbit needs just a little nudge to be corralled into one lump, but junk in the unpredictable, low Earth orbits is much more difficult to remove.
		Junk electrotube is a very cheap version of a versatile and reusable system of space transportation called composite electrotube.
	www.islandone.org /LEOBiblio/SPBI1RE.HTM (468 words)

	Article 1
		US military surveillance cameras that track orbiting junk would issue a warning whenever an object was about to come too close to the station, and the entire structure would be moved.
		In-orbit assembly of the space station -- a cooperative effort between NASA and the Canadian, Russian, Japanese, and European space agencies is scheduled to begin late this year.
		Among the useless junk released into space during a craft's deployment and operation are spent rocket bodies, lens caps, bolts, aluminum oxide particles from rocket motor exhausts, paint chips and fragmentary objects generated by more than 120 spacecraft and rocket body breakups.
	see.msfc.nasa.gov /sparkman/Section_Docs/article_1.htm (10743 words)

	Final frontier littered with junk (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		If the junk is one of the 9,000-plus objects big enough to be tracked, the U.S. Space Command alerts NASA in time to allow the station's orbit to be adjusted to avoid any chance of a collision.
		So far no one has ever been hurt by incoming space junk — not even Lottie Williams of Turley, Okla., who was strolling in a park in 1997 when she was struck on the shoulder by a charred 6-inch fragment of a Delta rocket launched a year earlier.
		Operators of satellites in geo-stationary orbits, the coveted 22,500-mile altitude used by hundreds of communications and weather satellites, frequently move obsolete satellites into a "disposal" orbit 150 miles farther out, where they won't collide with functional satellites — at least for a while.
	www.oxfordpress.com /hp/content/shared/news/stories/SPACE_JUNK_0227_COX.html (1511 words)

	NASA - Artificial Satellites
		A satellite remains in orbit because of a balance between the satellite's velocity (speed at which it would travel in a straight line) and the gravitational force between the satellite and Earth.
		A slow drift of the orbit's position is coordinated with Earth's movement around the sun in such a way that the satellite always crosses the equator at the same local time on Earth.
		The altitude of its orbit is 438 miles (705 kilometers), and the orbital period is 99 minutes.
	www.nasa.gov /worldbook/artificial_satellites_worldbook.html (2394 words)

	New Scientist Breaking News - Orbit shows "second Moon" may be Apollo junk (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		A mystery object recently found orbiting the Earth is more likely to be a used rocket booster from an Apollo spacecraft than a tiny second Moon.
		NASA scientists have now analysed the object's orbit, which "indicates that it could be a leftover Saturn V third stage from one of the Apollo missions, most likely the Apollo 12 mission, launched on 14 November 1969".
		They show that the object's orbit is consistent with a booster that circled the Earth in the 1960's or 1970's, was then captured by the Sun and finally returned to Earth orbit in April 2002.
	www.newscientist.com /article.ns?id=dn2790 (459 words)

	BBC NEWS \| Science/Nature \| Earth's new 'moon' is space junk
		Initial orbit calculations indicated that it was only about twice as far away as the Moon, and in orbit around the Earth.
		The most recent analysis of J002E3's pre-capture orbit about the Sun shows that it was always inside the Earth's orbit, and that it may have come within the Earth's vicinity in the early 1970s or late 1960s.
		Analysis of J002E3's orbit suggests that there is a chance of it impacting the Moon in 2003, and an outside possibility of it burning up in the Earth's atmosphere sometime in the next decade or so.
	news.bbc.co.uk /2/hi/science/nature/2253385.stm (372 words)

	USATODAY.com - Space junk still accumulating, adding to hazard (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		Even without any launches adding to the junk, the creation of new debris from collisions of material already there will exceed the amount of material removed as orbits decay and items fall back to Earth, the researchers estimated.
		Tethers to slow down orbiting materials and cause them to fall back to Earth sooner could work, but attaching tethers to the space junk would be excessively expensive for the benefit gained, the researchers said.
		And use of ground-based lasers to disturb the orbits of satellites isn't practical because of the mass of the satellites and the amount of energy that would be needed.
	www.usatoday.com /tech/science/space/2006-01-19-space-junk_x.htm (558 words)

	No. 1714:"Infinite Reservoir" of Space
		One is a thin shell at the geosynchronous orbit level.
		The other lies in the low orbit range used by space shuttles and space stations.
		Within a decade or so, low-orbit junk is slowed by fringe molecules of the atmosphere.
	www.uh.edu /engines/epi1714.htm (559 words)

	SpaceViews March 1997: Articles
		The new results found that the population of objects 1 cm or larger in orbit might be just half the number estimated by a model five years before.
		It suggested dying spacecraft and booster stages be pushed into "graveyard" orbits outside of LEO and GEO, where even if they break apart, they will contribute little to the orbital debris in the more populated orbits.
		These was considerable interest with dealing with space junk in GEO, an increasingly-crowded orbit that has its share of defunct spacecraft and space junk.
	www.seds.org /spaceviews/9703/articles.html (1693 words)

	Howstuffworks "How Satellites Work"
		To maintain an orbit that is 22,223 miles (35,786 km) above Earth, the satellite must orbit at a speed of about 7,000 mph (11,300 kph).
		At higher altitudes, where the vacuum of space is nearly complete, there is almost no drag and a satellite can stay in orbit for centuries (take the moon as an example).
		By firing a rocket when the orbit is at the apogee of its orbit (its most distant point from Earth), and applying thrust in the direction of the flight path, the perigee (lowest point from Earth) moves further out.
	science.howstuffworks.com /satellite3.htm (592 words)

	CNN.com - Newfound 'moon' could be Apollo rocket junk - September 13, 2002
		(CNN) -- An object recently detected in a chaotic Earth orbit is possibly a section from one the largest rockets ever built, a NASA monster taller than a football field that carried men to the moon, scientists said.
		NASA astronomers theorize that J002E3 drifted into orbit around the sun, then fell back under our planet's gravitational spell earlier this year, having passed through one of numerous LaGrange points, or "portals" in space where the sun's gravity and that of the Earth cancel the other out.
		Orbiting Earth roughly once every 43 days, it has a 20 percent chance of striking the moon in 2003 and a 2 percent chance of hitting the Earth within the decade.
	archives.cnn.com /2002/TECH/space/09/13/mistaken.moon (444 words)

	Terminator Tether - EDT Solution To Space Debris Update: Science Fiction in the News
		Satellites or other objects in orbit higher than 700 kilometers will stay there for hundreds of years; LEO satellites have an average working life of just five years.
		Studies have shown that low Earth orbit is not a limitless resource and should be managed more carefully.
		Also, graveyard orbits merely leave satellites up higher, where micrometeorite damage slowly causes these objects to break apart; smaller fragments will filter back down, leaving this problem for our children to solve.
	www.technovelgy.com /ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=264 (814 words)

	SPACE.com -- Space Junk
		A 1999 study estimated there are some 4 million pounds of space junk in low-Earth orbit, just one part of a celestial sea of roughly 110,000 objects larger than 1 centimeter -- each big enough to damage a satellite or space-based telescope.
		Of the total, 2,671 are satellites (working or not), 90 are space probes that have been launched out of Earth orbit, and 6096 are mere chunks of debris zooming around the third planet from the Sun.
		The oldest debris still on orbit is the second US satellite, the Vanguard I, launched on 1958, March, the 17th, which worked only for 6 years.
	www.space.com /spacewatch/space_junk.html (790 words)

	Junk in Space!
		Spacecraft must be protected by shields that are not hurt when they get hit with space junk.
		The LDEF was put in orbit April 1984 by the Shuttle Challenger.
		Besides having shielding from space junk, a spacecraft can move out of the way to avoid getting hit by debris.
	www.windows.ucar.edu /tour/link=/headline_universe/junk.html (272 words)

	SPACE-TALK - Beagle 2 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		The impact as small as it was modified the orbit, and the Russian satellite re-entered a week later.
		NORAD tracks all space junk that its radars can find, but theres some trash that doesnt have a radar signature due to their small size or composition.
		Alpha has to be moved on a regular basis due to orbit decay in any case due to its mass.
	www.space-talk.com /ForumE/showthread.php3?threadid=329 (739 words)

	BBC - Science & Nature - Space - Space Junk
		There may be over a million pieces of space junk currently orbiting the Earth.
		The current estimate is that there are over a million bits of debris orbiting the Earth.
		Geosynchronous orbit is one in which a satellite rotates around the Earth at the same rate as the planet spins.
	www.bbc.co.uk /science/space/solarsystem/earth/spacejunk.shtml (617 words)

	Space Junk Cleanup Needed, NASA Experts Warn (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		Scientists say the orbital debris, better known as space junk, poses an increasing threat to space activities, including robotic missions and human space flight.
		Johnson and his team have devised a computer model capable of simulating past and future amounts of space junk.
		While current efforts have focused on limiting future space junk, the scientists say removing large pieces of old space junk will soon be necessary.
	news.nationalgeographic.com /news/2006/01/0119_060119_space_junk.html (309 words)

	Space Exploration Portal @ LaunchBase.org (Launch Base) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		This endeavour has been to some degree a dream and goal of humanity for the past several centuries, but it was not until the development of large liquid-fueled rocket engines during the early 20th century that it really began to be seriously developed.
		Achieving orbit is not essential for manned or unmanned interplanetary voyages.
		In the meantime, the Soviet dog Laika became the first animal in orbit on November 3, 1957.
	www.launchbase.org (3240 words)

	New space station moved up to avoid space junk
		The U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs, Colo., which tracks orbiting objects, notified NASA over the weekend that a spent Pegasus rocket body would pass within a mile of the space station on Wednesday, Herring said.
		Before the move, the space station was in an orbit 230 miles by 247 miles high.
		NASA planned to boost the orbit of the space station anyway early next year as part of a test for the arrival of the next piece, a Russian module equipped with all the life-support systems.
	www.chron.com /content/interactive/space/station/stories/1999/991026.html (257 words)

	Blógünder Schlock » Blog Archive » Space Elevators and Business
		Junk in orbit is a big problem, especially as a fair chunk of the functional junk is military related.
		What all the starry-eyed futurologists are forgetting is that a geosynchronous orbit is an equilibrium state, where orbit speed, defined by the earth’s gravity, matches the angular speed of the earth’s rotation.
		It is quite possible to put the center of gravity of the whole construct into geosynchronous orbit, but that would mean that the station would be well above that orbit, and would be needed to be kept at the same angular speed as the earth’s rotation, in line with the equator.
	www.schlockmercenary.com /blog/index.php/2006/03/17/space-elevators-and-business (10414 words)

	Science \| Satellite survives close encounter with space junk \| Stuffucanuse
		The satellite, which is being used to measure ozone, was 51 miles behind the Discovery when it had its close encounter with an abandoned rocket motor.
		The U.S. Space Command, which tracks junk in orbit, warned NASA that a discarded rocket motor was in the neighborhood.
		The rocket motor is one of 8,500 pieces of orbiting objects being tracked by the Space Command, most of them junk.
	xmb.stuffucanuse.com /xmb/viewthread.php?tid=149 (282 words)

	Earth orbit turning into cosmic scrapheap - Space.com - MSNBC.com
		The most concentrated area of debris is in the region of space less than 1,240 miles (2,000 km) from Earth, known as low Earth orbit.
		It was identified as debris from a third stage of an American Delta 2 booster that had been orbiting since October 1993.
		There’s another "message" that can be seen in charting out the space junk saga, found in the relative numbers of spacecraft, rocket bodies, and other debris.
	www.msnbc.msn.com /id/6901573 (852 words)

	A Journey to the International Space Station (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and is made mainly of gas.
		Radar is used to detect pieces of space junk that orbit the earth.
		A term used to describe a place, such as in empty space or in orbit around a planet, where people feel no force of gravity.
	www.projectview.org /spacecenterhouston.words.terms.phrases.htm (817 words)

	9,000 pieces of space junk orbit Earth \| Arizona Daily Star ®
		More than 9,000 pieces of space debris are orbiting Earth, a hazard that can only be expected to get worse in the next few years.
		The pieces of space junk measuring 4 inches or more total 5,500 tons, according to a report by NASA scientists J.C. Liou and N.L. Johnson in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
		Much of the debris results from explosions of satellites, especially old rockets' upper stages left in orbit with leftover fuel and high pressure fluids.
	www.azstarnet.com /sn/printDS/112146 (340 words)

	Earth Spin Velocity Changes? - Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum
		Is the density of the earth reduced by the amount of space junk in orbit?
		Does the change in size of the earth's inner outer circumference (inside the moon and other ancient satellites' orbits, which would be its outer outer circumference) due to an expansion in earth's diameter by space junk have an affect on the rate of earth's spin?
		There is some transfer of momentum by launching things into orbit (that's why they tend to launch near the equator, to use rotational speed of about 1000mph), IIRC.
	www.bautforum.com /showthread.php?p=769876#post769876 (1470 words)

	Trash in Space (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		There are probably lots of planets orbiting other stars, but we cannot even see them.
		Now there is a problem with filling Earth orbit with junk, because Earth orbit is a fairly small region of space.
		But it takes so much energy to get into Earth orbit that it will never be a practical junk heap.
	www.newton.dep.anl.gov /newton/askasci/1995/environ/ENV132.HTM (246 words)

	PhysOrgForum Science, Physics and Technology Discussion Forums -> Space Elevator in Production Now
		Several things that I could think of would be creating a massive magnet of some sort that would orbit earth in the direction in which most of the material orbited.
		as far as meteor's hitting the ribbon or low earth orbit junk hitting it, I'm not really sure what their plan is. granted the odds of anythign hitting it are low, but after enough time I assume the probability approaches 1.
		I think the only way this thing could work, is to start from geosynchronous orbit, because that is the only place where the speed to defeat gravity is the same as the speed of the Earth's rotation.
	forum.physorg.com /index.php?showtopic=1704 (2518 words)

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