Hey, Aliens? A Little Help?
Credit: NASA-TV and Space.com
A spacewalking astronaut faced down a grease gun explosion only to lose a tool bag on Tuesday during an ambitious clean-and-grease job outside the International Space Station.
Veteran spacewalker Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper lost her grip on the bag while cleaning up a mess from a leaking grease gun she was carrying to help mop up metal grit from inside a massive gear that turns the space station’s starboard solar wings.
“Oh great,” Stefanyshyn-Piper said as the backpack-sized bag drifted away. “I guess one of my crew lock bags was not transferred and it’s loose.”
The good news here is that the tool bag is traveling in front of the ISS, so it’s not likely to whack anything sensitive or put a hole in the hull. The really good news is that the bag will remain in orbit for the forseeable future, which means that you won’t have to worry about a hammer dropping in from space like a Wile E. Coyote Acme trap run amok and conking you on the head.
Also, if you can get there, I know where you can pick up a nice set of quality tools.
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Category: Out in the Black
The second concern isn't a real worry; even if the astronaut had flung the bag as hard as she could, recontact would just mean a loud "gong", not a hole in the hull…
In this case, "the foreseeable future" is about two years. At some point after that–depending on the bag's exact density–its orbit will decay enough to force a reentry. At which point the bag, and its contents, will burn up…so, still no chance of a "hammer from the sky" scenario.
Why must you intrude upon my comical fantasies with physics and thermodynamics and all that jazz?
*snicker*
OK, what about what we're told are 1000s of other pieces man-made of trash floating around out there, and that NASA keeps track of?
Do we need a designated "spacefill" zone out there? Why aren't ALL offcasts given a firm push toward earth (for re-entry incineration) or stashed inside a larger vessel that will do a re-entry under controlled or uncontrolled conditions?
I have a nasty feeling that once again we're building a mess that will go ignored until it causes a disaster and there is a resultant public outcry. Of course every piece of "junk" out there has been bought and paid for by folks that could use the $$$ it cost (or even it would get at a scrap yard or ebay) to support their family.
Those are good questions, Flash; to answer in order:
1) The larger pieces of space debris, ranging in size from a bolt to entire dead spacecraft (and now including a wayward tool bag), are tracked from NORAD. If one of those presents the remotest danger to the space station, the entire ISS is moved out of the way. Events like this are generally several years apart.
Smaller bits of debris are more difficult to track; even something as small as a fleck of paint can pack a punch, given the speeds in orbit. And there are similar bits of rock and dust that happen to be falling to Earth from space, which the ISS will also encounter. For that, the structure has shielding.
2) Actually, the 'spacefill zone' idea has already been accepted; anything that gets moved there is said to be in a "parking orbit". But it continues to be tracked on radar, just in case.
3) Whenever possible, that's exactly what happens. Any satellite will be ordered to push itself higher or lower, at the end of its lifespan. Any detritus from the space station is loaded aboard the shuttle to be returned to Earth. But–sometimes a satellite just dies unexpectedly, or a tool bag is lost. And then the number of pieces of space junk goes up by one.
Down in the low orbits, like where the ISS is, it's not really a big deal; orbits at that level decay in a few years. The higher the orbit is, though, the longer it takes to decay; so there are some objects that will stay up there for millenia. The good news in that respect is that the high orbits are very roomy, and the junk in them is generally moving in the same direction, so collisions are quite rare.