HOW TINY PIECES OF SPACE JUNK COULD WREAK HAVOC ON U.S. WEATHER FORECASTS

From: Kevin L. Walton via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2015 22:49:35 -0500
"Remember the scene from the movie "Gravity," where space debris destroys a
satellite, kills a few astronauts and ultimately forces viewers to sit
through 90 minutes of Sandra Bullock's acting?

 

While the premise of the scene is completely unrealistic -- NASA and the
Defense Department use radars and electro-optical sensors to track space
objects as small as five centimeters in size, so there'd be ample warning --
the utter destructive force of space debris was depicted accurately.

 

That's bad news for the thousands of satellites orbiting Earth. According to
the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the growing amount of space
debris poses a particular risk to the nation's already-troubled
polar-orbiting satellite program."

 

 

http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/emerging-tech-blog/2015/02/how-tiny-pie
ces-space-junk-could-catastrophically-hinder-us-weather-forecasts/105276/

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Received on Fri Feb 13 2015 - 21:50:51 UTC

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