Comments on: Two Satellites Crashed into Each Other

By: tereglith

tereglith — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:15:51 +0000

Wait a minute! There's only nine hundred satellites up there! That's not actually that many, when you think about it. I doubt it will be like in WALL-E, with the cloud hovering around the Earth.

By: Kemper

Kemper — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:02:46 +0000

Was a space shuttle crewed by Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner nearby when this collision happened? Because I think I saw this movie.
.
Chief scientist in charge of space debris is the greatest title ever. That Nicholas Johnson has got be doing well with the ladies. "Why, hello there. I'm NASA's chief scientist in charge of space debris. Want to come look through my telescope at some old Saturn booster stages? They glow quite beautifully at this time of night."

By: jeffk

jeffk — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:45:40 +0000

Lev, are you familiar with the manga series Planetes? It's literally about a team of garbage collectors who have to clean up all the debris floating around (from, say, satellite collisions) in the Earth's orbit. It's better than it might sound!

By: Cliff

Cliff — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 01:22:54 +0000

It's hard to imagine a universal monitoring system for an environment where a paint flake can puncture a space shuttle. On the upside, this seems like the sort of challenge that gives birth to insanely useful technologies, like Velcro.
.
On the Wachowskis and Superman - say what you will about the Matrix, but they got my approval with V for Vendetta and Speed Racer. At the least they'll probably do better than "ZOMG Lex Luthor" again.