Every Known Piece Of Space Debris Orbiting The Earth

[n2doc]

http://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1eeswi/map_of_every_known_piece_of_space_debris_orbiting/

[zbdent]

1. Is that my sock?

[sofa king]

9. There was a glove, a spatula, a toolbag....

Here's "Heidi's toolbag" being launched on its own independent orbit:

Later, the toolbag was actually filmed by some guy on the ground in Ontario:

http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=23&month=11&year=2008

At one point, a 1400 lb ammonia tank was deliberately tossed overboard from the ISS. It took over a year to decay and reenter the atmosphere, but the disposal costs were very low.

One of the major pollutants in LEO was... pee. But now the ISS recycles, so there's less of that.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/spacestuff/

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. thanks for posting this.

[longship]

3. Now where did I put my metric socket wrench?

R&K

[annabanana]

4. We really DO poop in our own bed, don't we?. . . . n/t

[FogerRox]

6. Bullseye. At some point too much junk makes getting off planet

very risky.

[sofa king]

8. For the second space program, that is.

That orbit schematic is highly misleading. If each one of those pixels was proportioned to the actual size of the object (most of them 1cm or less), it would be a black screen. That's not to say it is not a danger, but it's not unworkable... yet.

The first nation or corporation that can sustain itself without resupply from Earth can easily create a one-way profit door by simply dumping a few tons of gravel into LEO, leaving a couple of doughnut holes at the poles for (very) limited and highly expensive egress. Now your rocks can be delivered down, but nobody else can come up to mess with you while you consolidate your hold on the solar system.

Got a carbon dioxide problem on Earth? Solar Syndicate will happily disperse tons of olivine in the atmosphere for you to lower CO2, no problem, in return for whatever the entire population of planet Earth can afford....

[caledesi]

5. A fact is a hoax to these flat-earthers. nt

[tech3149]

7. I think that points to two things

First, we really do shit where we eat.
Second: If you have a means to leave the planet, head for the poles.

[greiner3]

10. Looks like the electrons within their shells;

And their paths around the nucleus.

[Th1onein]

11. Looks like Pig Pen on a planetary scale.

Are those flies I see?

[sakabatou]

12. That's a shit-load of garbage

Any news on a clean-up project?

[joshdawg]

13. We built that?!

WTF!