Has anyone ever thought about creating an artificial meteor shower?

Question

It's maybe a silly notion, but I saw the article concerning the ISS tossing out junk; then I had this horrible image in my mind of Pepsi Cola sponsoring "global meteor shower 2007" by heaving a bag of sand into an orbit that'll bring it back into the atmosphere.

Yo Nick, most meteorites are the size of a grain of sand. I imagine Pepsi has the advertising funds to launch a private rocket to heave a bag of sand and have its many particles spread across the sky. They spend millions for a 30 second add during the super bowl, this could last for days and span the world.

Answer 1

All we would have to do is send the space junk back in to the atmosphere at once. I would probably be easy to just grab the junk as you go by and send it down all at once in a space ship that burns up on the way in. An example is a rocket ship that hold the junk with fish netting.

The only other possibility is to take a bunch of baseball size magnesium balls up in a huge cloth or plastic bag and send it down with a rocket booster where the bag burns up in the atmosphere and the balls burn up on the way down.

I like the idea. What can we do to make it happen?

Answer 2

Its not a silly notion, and actually a very serious concern. In fact, not too long ago the Chinese planted the very seed for this type of meteor shower to occur. Several months ago the Chinese Space Agency launched a prototype orbital defense system. The job of this platform is to shoot a dense particle at an incoming missile (or satellite) and shred the intruder into thousands of pieces. They successfully tested the device on a derelict satellite in low earth orbit. The problem is that no one there thought about the trajectory of all the fragmented pieces of the target satellite. These pieces are spreading into a large cloud of particles that eventually will collide with other satellites in similar orbits. These fragments will do pretty much the same thing to other satellites as the Chinese defensive satellite did. This is pretty much the start of a chain reaction with will leave low earth orbit objects in a shambles. Many of these collisions will result in the objects falling back to earth, and others wil head out to higher orbits where they may cause the same chain reaction. Lets hope we can figure out a way to keep that debris from completely destroying Earth's network of man-made satellites.

Answer 3

Interesting idea...You suggest that NASA, EuroSpace, or Russia haul a bag of sand (say 80 LBS) up into space and throw it out...Hmm-m...
Hmm-m-m...
At a cost of $100,000 per pound of payload I have some doubts that this is going to happen any time soon. There is already tons of junk in space which would make fantastic meteor showers as long as it doesn't fall into metro areas. You should see all the space junk the techies are tracking in space right this moment.

Think about it like this...you are an astronaut up in space working on a satellite. This sudden urge strikes you, and you lay down your tools to take a little pea, or light a cigarette...And next thing you know, your tools have floated off into space, gone forever...Well, those tools have gotta come back down to Earth someday...Bingo...Manmade Meteors.

Answer 4

For what reason?

It costs millions of dollars to carry things up to ISS. Who is willing to do that for a 10 minute display.

When the MIR space station re-entered in its demise, it created a fantastic display. But you had to be in the right place.

So, even if the crew of ISS did chuck out a bag of sand, only a limited part of the world would see it. And that payload is expensive.

Answer 5

So far, the closest has been an artificial aurora (it was to study the shape of Earth's magnetic field). It was done many times.

Submit your idea to Pepsi. They might even go for it. Sure, it is expensive to send stuff up there, but then, so is a one minute commercial at the Super Bowl.

Answer 6

Heh I would think NORAD what have a hissy fit over something like that!