Space Debris Is Now a Big Problem

More than half a million pieces of man-made space junk are orbiting the Earth at speeds up to 17,500 miles per hour. Even the tiniest pieces have the potential to destroy any of the 1,700 satellites circling the Earth.

Nuclear physicist Taylor Wilson joined the Air Force Space Command to see how a growing military and commercial space presence threatens the ubiquitous satellites, which are essential to humanity's digital way of life.

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[VICENews]

Nuclear physicist Taylor Wilson joined the Air Force Space Command to see how a growing military and commercial space presence threatens the ubiquitous satellites, which are essential to humanity's digital way of life.

[CallMeMicahT]

This dude really went to the Pentagon dressed like a skinny James Bond

[baubach]

It is so gratifying looking at a smart interviewer who actually understand the concepts of the subject he is sent to interview

[MrDupraSupra]

We can’t even clean our own alone space lol

[TitusM]

Shaggy now doing journalism ? what happened to scooby ?

[jacobkudrowich]

I like how they got Scott Pilgrim to do the interview

[logarhythmic]

Did that guy really interview the Secretary of the Air Force (at the Pentagon) with his shirt basically unbuttoned?

[HoustonYu]

I was a 1st Lieutenant in the USAF who worked on this project for 2 years. Visited Vandenburg many times and added to the research for space debris mitigation.

[flyagaric]

Space Debris is now an even bigger problem of debris getting smaller.

[raul]

11:06 My favorite part of this documentary.


The smile on her face.

[melted_cheetah]

And Space X just launched how many mini satellites?

[jamesfox]

yet another reason to have crippling existential dread and anxiety. thank you, vice.

[rileyferrell]

Holy shit the guy doing the interview could dodge rain drops

[whoatepoo]

this is why we need space force people.

[gwroman]

His face says he's a nerd, his clothes says he's a clown.. so confused.

[joshnordin]

Nobody mentioned that space debris isnt a permanent thing. All space debris falls out of orbit over time because of atmospheric drag so were not going to cut off our access to space we just have to limit the amount of debris we produce

[jilypu]

ahh humans, it isnt enough to litter and pollute the earth. We now have trash and litter in space

[MadStyle]

Always mind boggling how we do not think about trash, debris in anything we do and now in space.

[holyravioli]

Wait a minute i know that journalist. Hes that fella who was messing around with nuclear reactors in a vice documentary.

[xeliousdarlowin]

Some more general remarks:

One thing that has to be considered is that as the First Gulf War and the Balkan Conflict have shown, global positioning systems allow a much more efficient projection of military power. After all, don't you remember the Tomawhawks coming in through the windows of the interior ministry or the state television station in Baghdad? In any case, basically, the Powel Doctrine's argument was that with surgical attacks it was possible to destroy the enemy's chain of command, its offensive, and defensive potential, military-industrial complex while minimizing civilian and military casualties while lowering the costs of direct military intervention. Anyway, all of this within a larger context better known as RMA (revolution in military affairs) that began during the Regan presidency in the 1980s.

The fact is that with this “super big stick”, Americans started to intervene more in low-intensity conflicts not always with the expected result as in Somalia in 1993.

In any case, the Chinese and Russians have followed this closely and come to a simple conclusion: Almost all US Command and Control (C2) infrastructure is in space. All this considering the aggravating factor that US forces are scattered across the globe which makes satellites even more vital. At the same time, these governments themselves went through their RMAs that implied global positioning systems such as GLONASS and BeiDou (as well as denying the potential enemy the advantages of such a system). So the monopoly was eroded, as the Americans proposed the militarization of space, that something that is not so much of Trump himself but of George W. Bush with all that 2000s neocons talk about Rods of God. " Of course, neither the Chinese nor the Russians would let the orbital structures go unpunished to Americans (which sounds like a neoconservative Death Star) in which a military intervention in at least 48 hours to overthrow allied regimes took place in Iraq. in 2004 or now recently in Libya in 2011.

Who knows, Mackinder's way, and thinking of the near future with the proper license to the author, the prevalence in terms of strategic pivot is today with the one that will predominate in space near the earth than in the land itself for two reasons: higher ease of projection of military force on the globe (mobility and offensive power) and greater access to natural resources in the near future needed for the industrial economy 4.0.

"The following conclusion is as follows: arrive first, monopolize if possible or at least temporarily (or permanently) deny the enemy"

But in the event of a global collapse of all orbiting infrastructure, we continue to kill ourselves anyway (obviously not?), which makes me in the proposed solutions. It would be the use of Artificial Intelligence that would work together with tiny atomic clocks that would allow the precise calculation of coordinates while at the same time spending any kind of direct human intervention (in the event of communication drop either by Jamming or kinetic attack). Everything would turn out to be a "Skynet's" duel, sometimes employed offensively and sometimes defensively, without much human intervention, not to mention the traditional paper maps by ground troops. There are already indications that we are heading in this direction, especially with Russians and Chinese integrating AI into their strategic nuclear arsenals or Israelis who are testing artificial intelligence on Spice-2000 precision-guided bombs.

But it's hard to know where this will all end up considering the bureaucratic, resource and organizational chaos that affect the development of these areas now for the Americans...