Space Junk: How Cluttered Is The Final Frontier?

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2020

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Since the dawn of Sputnik in 1957, space-faring nations have been filling Earth's orbit with satellites. Think GPS, weather forecasting, telecommunications satellites. But as those have increased, so, too, has space junk. On today's show, we talk about the first mission to clean up space junk and the problem debris poses to sustainability in space.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:04.1	Hey everybody, Maddie Sifaya here with Shortwave Reporter Emily Kwong.
0:09.4	Hey, hey you.
0:10.7	So today we have a listener question episode.
0:14.4	Hey, this one is from Rachel Weiss.
0:17.0	Hey there Shortwave, this is Rachel from Jacksonville, Florida and I was curious about space junk.
0:23.4	How much of a problem is it if at all and where is all this junk anyways?
0:27.8	Space.
0:29.4	Oh boy.
0:30.7	The final frontier, Maddie, is not a pristine environment.
0:34.6	Since the dawn of Sputnik, we've been filling it with satellites, manmade objects placed in orbit
0:40.2	to collect data and send signals for military purposes, research, communication, navigation,
0:45.3	our friend GPS.
0:46.7	That's right, we are a satellite dependent world.
0:49.7	I want to introduce you to Moriba Jock.
0:51.9	He enlisted in the US military after high school and was stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana
0:57.4	when he noticed satellites for the very first time.
1:00.3	You know Montana is big sky country and not only do you see lots of stars in the Milky Way and all that,
1:06.2	but I started noticing these dots going across the horizon.
1:10.5	And he realized those dots were satellites.
1:13.4	I never imagined that with my naked eye I'd be able to see hardware, other satellites up there
1:20.1	reflecting sunlight and it was like wow.
	...

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