The
pollution of outer space
By
Craig Eisendrath
On
July 24, the Associated Press announced, "A spacewalking astronaut, Clayton
C. Anderson, discarded a camera mounting and an ammonia tank weighing more than
half a ton at the International Space Station. The outdated equipment ... joined
more than 9,000 pieces of orbital debris already being tracked from Earth."
Space
debris poses a huge problem for our future - a problem that could be made much
worse by U.S. plans to introduce weapons into space.
A
piece of debris in low Earth orbit travels at 17,000 miles per hour. A 10-pound
piece hits with the kinetic power of a 50-mph truck, and can completely destroy
a satellite. Many thousands of small pieces, too small to be included in the 9,000
figure cited by the Associated Press, can nevertheless do substantial damage.
Collisions with space debris have already caused low-level harm.
This
orbiting junkyard renders vulnerable the entire series of satellites that have
changed our world in the last few decades. These include positioning satellites,
which tell us where we are driving in our car, or tell a pilot or sea captain
where his plane or ship is. They include weather satellites, which for the first
time in our planetary history give us an accurate worldwide weather system. They
also include communication satellites, which connect us to people all over the
world, facilitating personal and business communications. And they include scientific
satellites, which for the first time have given astronomers the chance to view
the cosmos outside the fog of the atmosphere.
Space
debris places all this at risk. Worse, should the U.S. military move ahead with
its plans to weaponize space, the testing required - especially if other nations
follow suit - would lead to a level of debris perhaps 10 times higher than the
9,000 pieces presently being tracked. This would jeopardize the entire system
of peaceful satellites upon which the world depends.
These
plans can be stopped.
All
space-faring nations but the United States are ready to sign a treaty banning
weapons from outer space, extending the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that bans only
weapons of mass destruction. The 1967 treaty makes clear that nations should not
interfere with the peaceful uses of outer space by other countries, which the
creation of debris clearly does.
It
is time that the United States joins its global neighbors and signs on to a treaty
banning all weapons in outer space, thus protecting this region from the destructive
proliferation of debris. This treaty would also secure outer space for peaceful
purposes.
Unfortunately,
President Bush issued an edict in October stating that the United States would
not sign any treaty that inhibited its actions in outer space. It is high time
the Bush administration joins the rest of the advanced world in protecting our
peaceful satellites.
