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Gravity: Has The Space Junk Apocalypse Already Begun?

“ASK THE SKY – DON’T FALL ON ME” There aren’t a lot of movies we look forward to watching anymore but Gravity – the 2013 space odyssey starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney – was one of them. Directed, co-written and co-produced by Alfonso Cuarón – the movie depicts a…

“ASK THE SKY – DON’T FALL ON ME”

There aren’t a lot of movies we look forward to watching anymore but Gravity – the 2013 space odyssey starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney – was one of them.

Directed, co-written and co-produced by Alfonso Cuarón – the movie depicts a Space Shuttle crew led by Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) and veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (Clooney) who are in the midst of repairing an orbiting telescope when (cue timpani) disaster strikes.

An attempt by the Russian Federation to shoot down one of their orbiting satellites backfires – producing a chain reaction of satellite collisions and a mass of high-speed orbital debris.

Gravity won seven Academy Awards – including well-deserved visual effects and cinematography victories. It’s a thrill ride – with several clever homages to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In addition to its initial critical and commercial success, we think it has all the makings of an enduring classic.

Missed it? Here’s the trailer …

(Click to play)

After watching Gravity, our first thought … aside from marveling at how amazing the 49-year-old Bullock looked … was whether the sort of “chain reaction” space junk apocalypse depicted in the movie could really happen.

So we went digging … and the answer is: Definitely maybe.

The scenario depicted in Gravity is known as the Kessler Syndrome. It was first proposed in 1978 by a NASA scientist named Donald J. Kessler – and it holds that there are so many satellites (and so much space junk) orbiting the planet that collisions are not only likely, but could easily snowball into “ablation cascades” of debris.

Worst case scenario? Satellite technology goes kaput and space exploration grinds to a halt.

Can it happen? According to Kessler, it already is.

“It’s building up as I expected,” Kessler told reporter Corrinne Burns of The (U.K.) Guardian. “The cascade is happening right now – the Kosmos-Iridum collision was the start of the process. It has already begun.”

Huh?

For those of you who missed it, the Kosmos-Iridum collision was the world’s first “hypervelocity collision” of two satellites. It occurred in February 2009 when an out-of-service Russian military satellite (Kosmos 2251) smashed into an operational American communications satellite (Iridium 33). At least 1,000 pieces of large debris resulted from the crash.

Much of this debris – about a quarter of it – has burned up in the earth’s atmosphere. The rest of it is still orbiting the planet – and in one case actually forced the International Space Station (ISS) to make a course correction in order to avoid an impact.

Of course while Kessler says his “syndrome” has already begun, it is slow-rolling – as the “chain reaction” initiated by the Kosmos-Iridum collision is currently only projected to produce collisions every ten years.

A much more worrisome scenario involves the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Envisat – an 18,000-pound environmental satellite that mysteriously went offline in April 2012 as it circled the earth. On January 21, 2010, Envisat was almost struck by a discarded Chinese upper-stage rocket body weighing more than four tons.

How close was “almost?” Forty-eight yards, according to the U.S. Joint Space Operations Center. Had the two massive objects collided, the ESA said “a major orbital debris issue” would have ensued – one with the potential to create a dramatic escalation of the Kessler Syndrome.

Envisat – which is routinely in close contact with other orbiting objects – is not expected to naturally fall from the sky for another 150 years.

So … should you be worried about any of this?

Well …

As screenwriter Aaron Sorkin once wrote, “the most costly disruptions happen when something we take completely for granted stops working.”

Like satellites …

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51 comments

idcydm April 4, 2014 at 7:09 pm

Watched it, liked it but “The Earth Stood Still”, now that’s an enduring classic, the 1951 version that is.

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euwe max April 4, 2014 at 7:11 pm

Forbidden Planet.

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idcydm April 4, 2014 at 7:13 pm

Good one also.

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euwe max April 4, 2014 at 8:00 pm

Aliens (the second in the franchise)

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Gregory Geddings April 4, 2014 at 8:24 pm

Euwe,

Sorry I didn’t respond quickly to the comments you posted on my blog. Sometimes I only go there once every few days. Sometimes I spend day after day screwing around with some warped concept. Glad you like the one with Bill Clinton hawking his bronzed turds to help finance Hillary’s presidential run.

It is not a daily news site like this one. I post stuff when the inspiration hits.

Just posted this one about Ann Coulter’s Bigfoot lesbian strap-on tryst…

http://2big2fall.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/ann-coulter-the-bigfoot-connection/

shifty henry April 4, 2014 at 9:21 pm

That was just shocking to me as it depicts a nightmarish future. Which guy in the heading is the GrandTurnip — the one on the left or on the right?

Gregory Geddings April 5, 2014 at 8:09 am

The headers (10 roughly) appear randomly so I can’t tell for sure. You can discover GrandTango’s (Turnip, Turdo, etc.) real identity by clicking on the link below. He’s the one who looks like a turd in a punchbowl.

http://2big2fall.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/photoshop-fun-with-will-folks-fitsnews/

shifty henry April 5, 2014 at 10:21 am

PS: Ann is a friend of mine…

Gregory Geddings April 5, 2014 at 1:07 pm

…and I have the whip marks to prove it?

Smirks April 5, 2014 at 8:05 am

Just posted this one about Ann Coulter’s Bigfoot lesbian strap-on tryst…

You are a dangerous man.

Gregory Geddings April 5, 2014 at 8:12 am

THANKS! I have noticed an increase in police traffic passing my house on the dead-end road where I live so the end may, in fact, be nigh!

shifty henry April 5, 2014 at 10:19 am

“local police cars passing my house ”

Nothing to worry about. It’s either the cops are interested in moving to your neighborhood, or (shudder) they may build a new police sub-station.

Gregory Geddings April 5, 2014 at 1:38 pm

I don’t think the cops are going to move here. I say that because the last piece of land on my road that was put up for sale was back in 1984. It is the four acres on which I live. The rest of the land down here is heirs property owned by African-American families whose ancestors acquired their various parcels after the Civil War. I know of two who live on 10 acre pieces. Nice folks.

Tiny lots @ 12 per acre a few hundred feet up the road from us are going for 60K plus. Greedy developers would love to shove us out but it ain’t going to happen because we are very organized. I’m the only white guy down here.

euwe max April 5, 2014 at 1:13 pm

You have no idea.

SparkleCity April 5, 2014 at 10:33 pm

Gotta disagree:

“Alien” (first one) = one of the top 5 movies EVER made…..

“2001 – A Space Odyssey” being #1………..

euwe max April 6, 2014 at 3:41 am

Aliens…. to the death! It’s packed with quotes – and much higher production value.

2001.. Kubrick took acid… big deal, so did I!

SparkleCity April 5, 2014 at 10:28 pm

Soylent Green……………………

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Fits Aint No Republican April 4, 2014 at 7:18 pm

Next thing you know Fits will be claiming Global Warming is REAL!

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CNSYD April 4, 2014 at 7:56 pm

He will use the new “in” term …climate change.

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The Colonel April 4, 2014 at 8:12 pm

The climate is changing, just as it has throughout Earth’s existence.

Will, Considering your apocalyptic story title I’d of thought that this REM song was a better match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY

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TontoBubbaGoldstein April 5, 2014 at 11:47 am

TBG feels fine!

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euwe max April 5, 2014 at 5:54 pm

I don’t know, because it’s never happened to me, but I’ve *heard* that falling doesn’t hurt – it’s the sudden stop.

SparkleCity April 5, 2014 at 10:40 pm

I know that YOU know that DOD is working on movements for countering international encroachment on the Artic icecaps and the routes available as they melt in order to counter other countries beating us to the punch concerning trans-artic routes as the icecaps melt…………………

And both you and I know that ain’t no BS

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The Colonel April 5, 2014 at 10:55 pm

Oh yeah – ever since the USS Nautilus first sailed under the ice and the USS Connecticut popped up through the ice, we’ve had plans to use the Artic as a short range launch platform for SSBNs. The flight time would be so short that the Ruskies wouldn’t have time to react (or so the theory goes…)

There’s still Naval research going on up there for a variety of reasons, some of them even peaceful – http://news.msn.com/us/navy-breaks-down-ice-camp-north-of-alaska

SparkleCity April 6, 2014 at 10:05 am

I’m not talking about the Cold War era shorter launching distances. I’m referring to the declassified briefings of the last few years stating that the melting ice will provide encroachment of the Artic territory for oil and other natural resources not to mention territory grabbing

The Colonel April 6, 2014 at 10:35 am

No, totally agree, our interest in the Artic dates back to the discovery that there was water under all that ice and the Navy’s efforts there. Most of the mineral wealth that is predicted to be there was “discovered” by Uncle Sugar’s Navy. ARCO was the first to exploit it.

Conoco started a well this last summer in the Chukchi Sea

off the west coast of Alaska I think the Russians put a natural gas well down as well. In order to truly exploit the potential oil reserves (maybe 20-30% of all unproven oil) they’ll have to figure out how to do it under the ice/below the surface. Even if we were to get a few summers of “ice free” conditions, they won’t last and the temperature extremes there make conventional oil drilling next to impossible.

The “territory grabbing” is going on but it is kind of pointless – there really isn’t anything to grab if the ice is gone and ultimately the Artic sea would wind up like the Pacific Ocean (12 mile limits, 200 mile exclusion zones). So far, the Ruskies have limited them selves to the Lomonosov Ridge though – a crescent shaped shelf that follows their coast line. They lack the technical ability to drill/mine any deeper that that anyway. They did put a “flag” on the sea bed near the geographic north pole but that’s really nothing more than gamesmanship.

The last ice age ended just over 12,000 years ago, the little ice age ended just over 150 years ago – the climate is changing but we have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Bill April 6, 2014 at 3:43 pm

“we have absolutely nothing to do with it.” Says who?

The only thing certain is that people, like you, who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about, will pretend they do and will try to prove it by yell louder than those who do know what they are talking about.

The Colonel April 6, 2014 at 3:46 pm

Yeah, whatever Bill.

Bill April 6, 2014 at 5:33 pm

What I find hilarious about you Fake News watchers, is your ability to state the obvious and then jump to the wholly unfounded conclusion it has something to do with current global warming science. Yes, Sean we know there was a lot of snow this year. Yes, Sean we know there were palm trees in Antarctica 10,000 years ago when the dinosaurs joined Noah on the Ark.

Global warming is a science question not a political question. The fact that you hate Al Gore and the fact that large corporations pay Republicans to say things like global warming is a conspiracy, we need to eliminate the EPA, corporations are responsible and will not pollute the environment, and what’s a little black lung or asthma when we are producing so many jobs, does not impact the existence or lack thereof of global warming, change its cause, change who and what are contributors to it; or change the impact that warming will have on our current civilization.

The fact remains a significant majority of climate scientist say human activity is contributing to an increase in the mean global temperature now, and that increase will negatively impact or current civilization. So, we have to choose whether to believe them or the Fake News Network and the Republican Party. In that regard I have to ask myself, what is the downside to the scientist being wrong, and what is the down side to Sean Hannity and Fox News being wrong? I also have to ask myself who do I trust more; Republican politicians an Fox News or Scientists.

The rest of us are not stupid. We all know the world has been both warmer and colder than it is now. We all know the little ice age occurred. We all know it was likely related to ash spread by eruptions of Krakatoa. We all know there are reasons other than human activity that can cause global warming or global cooling. But that has nothing to do with whether are not human activity is contributing to global warming now. So please spare a recitation of irrelevant moments in history.

The Colonel April 6, 2014 at 5:54 pm

Krakatoa hunh? If Krakatoa started “the little ice age” (LIA) in 1683 when it erupted why didn’t the 1883 eruption extend the LIA. The 1683 eruption was a microcosm of the 1883 eruption.

Oh, the global cooling that brought on the LIA started as early as 1350 so Krakatoa had about zip to do with it but don’t let facts interfere with hyperbole. You need a few of those “irrelevant moments” to put things in context and determine if your postulation stands up to empirical tests (yours doesn’t)

But you are somewhat correct about Krakatoa’s effects on global climate – the 1883 eruption had the effect of lowering global temperatures by about 3 degrees for about 5 years. This occurred about 30 years AFTER the LIA ended.

Fox News? For the last year I’ve watched far more Al Jazeera and BBC than any other news channels. I generally avoid TV news all together unless the story is about the Gamecocks or motorcycles.

Republicans? The only politician I mention was the idiot Al “I invented the internet” Gore and only because he was the forefront of the movement, not because he was a politician – I didn’t even mention the fact that he is a typical manipulative Democrat.

Bill April 6, 2014 at 8:39 pm

Actually Colonel, some climate scientist believe the little ice age can trace its beginning to major eruptions of Krakatoa in the 13th and 14the centuries. More recent reports from last year suggest Mt. Samalas, in Indonesia, which evidence suggested had a major eruption during that same period. Others suggest the effect of these eruptions were reinforced by ash from the eruption of Mt. Huaynaputina in Peru around 1600. There is no doubt there was a significantly higher level of volcanic activity from the late 13th century through the early 17th century than there is today.

But I am not a scientist, so I cannot speculate as to the accuracy of this assessment. That does not change my point that current scientist believe by a large majority that human activity is accelerating global warming and it will cause problems for our civilization. I have to decide whether I will believe them or the non-scientists who have an economic

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0130/Volcanic-eruptions-emerge-as-lead-cause-for-Little-Ice-Age

The Colonel April 6, 2014 at 8:58 pm

The CSM aside, there were no major eruptions of Krakatoa between 535 and 1680. The single largest eruption to have ever occurred (the 1883 eruption) only caused a 3-4 year climate change – the LIA lasted more than 250 years. The facts don’t support the hypothesis.

My first degree was in marine science, one of the things I’ve learned in the intervening 30 years is the grander the hypothesis, the more likely it is to be wrong.

GrandTango April 4, 2014 at 8:23 pm

Liberals usually $#!* their pants over things that don’t exist (no-access to healthcare for the poor, White on Black Racism) but you are ignorant of REAL and dangerous Threats…(Muslim Terrorists, illegal aliens, Racists, like Obama exacting revenge from the White House)..

So NO, I doubt Space Junk is a real problem…if you’re P!##!ing yourself over it…

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Bored Much? April 5, 2014 at 11:50 am

Do you comment to give your miserable ass something to do?

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Halfvast Conspirator April 5, 2014 at 11:55 am

That would be “miserable @$$”

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GrandTango April 5, 2014 at 12:16 pm

Oh…the irony..LMAO… (No, I don’t have to explain it to you)….

Liberals, to claim to be the best and the brightest, sure are some ignorant some beeches…Hahahaha…

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Mike at the Beach April 4, 2014 at 8:59 pm

Only tangentially related, but FREAKING AMAZING nonetheless- an old skydiving buddy sent the link below to me the yesterday. It’s video of a falling meteorite barely missing a Norwegian skydiver during his jump. Crazy! With my luck, the damn thing would have hit me. Dead on a skydive, but from a freaking meteorite…

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/watch-meteorite-narrowly-misses-norwegian-skydiver-article-1.1745184

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rwwllms April 5, 2014 at 12:02 am Reply
Slartibartfast April 5, 2014 at 1:24 am

Look. Malaysia has satellites, what does that tell you?

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euwe max April 5, 2014 at 5:53 pm

um.. that Malaysia isn’t libertarian?

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Gregory Geddings April 6, 2014 at 7:55 am

Ha! Ha! Good one!

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Slartibartfast April 6, 2014 at 8:20 pm

Ar – ar – ar – ar – ar – ar – ar

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euwe max April 6, 2014 at 8:23 pm

I’ve got more…

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Smirks April 5, 2014 at 8:03 am

The Ruskies kamikaze’d one of our satellites? Never heard about that one.

We need a better system of avoiding collisions and removing derelict satellites. Not sure how simple it would be to collect the debris currently flying around up there, but I’d imagine it is far simpler to not let satellites turn into debris in the first place.

Then again, in the next hundred years (or more), North Korea might actually get one satellite in space. If you think their rockets suck, I can only imagine what will happen when their satellite maneuvering screws up.

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euwe max April 5, 2014 at 5:53 pm

We need a better system of avoiding collisions and removing derelict satellites
——-
We don’t have tax money for that! We have to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, and attack Russia with whatever is left from the bailout!

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SparkleCity April 5, 2014 at 10:27 pm

And a UN Report says the oceans are no shit dying

The “Soylent Green” effect is less than 20 years from happening!!!

And we are all to blame!!!!!

Your child will curse your name and the people who deny what is happening FITS!!!!!

20-30 years from now will make the Middle Ages look like a picnic………

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The Colonel April 6, 2014 at 10:59 pm

Dang Sparkie, you’re over wrought
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

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SparkleCity April 5, 2014 at 10:45 pm

As far as I’m concerned that will mean the death of cellular telephone and the internet

There is a problem with that???

Functioned from 1960 – 1995 without either!!!

Got a problem with that?????

Going back to 1970 is fine with me!!!!!!!!!

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SparkleCity April 5, 2014 at 10:47 pm

Well, Sandra did look damn fine in those tight shorts right before getting into a space suit…………….

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Soft Sigh from Hell April 6, 2014 at 3:21 pm Reply
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