space trash?

Question

what do you think about space trash? and would you want it falling in your backyard?

sunday many states claim to have seen a meteor floating through the sky. ppl in many states clain it landed in their backyard or close to their homes. while it could have been a meteor breaking apart we in my community are being told it was simply space trash. yes i agree it may completly burn up b4 it touched ground anywhere but thats not 100% guarenteed to happen. iv been to a lot of websites tonight and its very possible for space trash to not completly burn up b4 it lands. i dont really care because we have messed up our environment so bad already. in cae no one else has noticed our seasons are changing, and the world is going to crap.

Answer 1

I wouldn't mind space trash falling in my back yard, I bet I could sell it for a packet on E-bay!

When US space station Skylab crashed in Western Australia in 1979 A US newspaper offered a $10,000 prize to the first person to deliver a piece of the station to their office. A 17 year old kid took a piece from his roof, caught the first plane over and claimed the prize, not bad for a day's work.

The Municipal Shire of Esperance in Western Australia where the station landed fined NASA $400 for littering, although to date NASA has not paid.

In general though, Space trash is not a good thing, and the cow that was killed by Skylab would posthumously agree with me. The biggest danger comes from orbital junk that could render near earth orbit to be unsafe for future human activities. Getting hit by a misplaced screw travelling at orbital velocity could really put a dent in your billion dollar communications sattelite...

Answer 2

In order to make it all the way to the ground, the object has to be pretty big and dense. Normal size 'trash' just can't do that. Even when whole satellites re-enter, I think very little actually makes it to the ground. The biggest problem with space-trash is that it occupies useful orbits and can collide with other things, potentially damaging things in a very serious way.

Answer 3

If it is big enough, yes it will impact somewhere on the surface--just look at MIR a few years ago. But, like MIR, if something is that large, it's entry point in controlled enough so that it hits somewhere like the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I forget what the exact number is, but I remember watching a show on the Discovery channel about NORAD and the USAF's Space Command and the fact that they monitor thousands of bits of space junk up there zipping along around our planet.

Answer 4

You'd hope it would burn up but plenty of it does make it back to the ground. Sometimes the wreckage is radioactive to make it even more dangerous. Luckily it mostly falls into an ocean.

Answer 5

We should let space trash to fall back to earth and disintegrate (the smaller ones) to reduce space trash orbiting earth atmosphere. Space agencies should recycle larger trash to reduce space develpment costs.

Answer 6

Stuff falling off of airplanes is much more dangerous. About 50 people a year are killed by falling airplane parts, but no one has been killed by falling space debris.

Answer 7

space is the final junkyard, scrap metal from collisions with other pieces of junk next too satelites. they r gonna hit.most burn up don't worry.

Answer 8

It woudl burn up in the atmoshpere before it ever got to your back yard.

Answer 9

You mean on the computer?