Briggs Aerospace Technologies
 

Litter in space: Varulkarie

Space debris is a growing problem due to impacts of pieces of spack junk creating more space debris. The amount of pieces of space junk in orbit has grown by 50% in the last 20 years.

There are over 22,000 pieces larger than 10cm in orbit. To put this into perspective, a piece of space debris the size of an aspirin (or about 1cm and 20 grams) travelling at  orbital speed has the same force as a 200 kilogram object travelling at 100km/hr. This means the object can destroy anything it hits.

There are those that predict a tipping point where space debris increases the risk of space flight to where fatalities make space flight too risky.

The only consolation is most pieces of space debris travel in similar orbits in similar directions due to rocket launches being against the rotation of the Earth. This is no guarantee of safety since even slight differences in orbit can still produce collisions with catestrophic results. Pieces of space debris at such speed as that of orbital velocity (32,000km/hr or nearly 9 kilometres per second) will kill without rapid intervention.


  Fortunately, Briggs Varulkarie will quickly reduce the problem, though it depends upon the J2000 HYT programme to make it a reality.
  ©2012 Briggs.