What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - Space Junk! (And Space Wars?)
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 November 2021
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Over the weekend, Russia tested a new weapon—a type of missile that can fly into space and destroy a satellite in orbit.
The test created thousands of pieces of debris, which will hurtle around the Earth’s orbit for years to come. What’s the real risk of the rapid increase in space junk? And is there anything to be done about it?
Guest:
Laura Grego, Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at MIT
Host: Seth Stevenson
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:53.9 | My mom gave me a book about astronauts when I was a kid and really I think she really |
| 0:59.7 | hoped I was going to be one. We had to be drinking. But like, I've remained pretty firmly |
| 1:05.3 | earth-bound. |
| 1:06.3 | Laura Grego is a former astrophysicist who's now a fellow at the laboratory for nuclear |
| 1:11.1 | science and engineering at MIT. Laura doesn't go into space. What she does is study how |
| 1:16.7 | humans use and in some cases abuse space. She tries to figure out what sorts of policies |
| 1:22.9 | will preserve space as a safe place for all earthlings to share. We called Laura up because |
| 1:28.9 | right now there's some pretty worrisome stuff happening in space. |
| 1:32.7 | So this week we saw that the International Space Station had what is called a conjunction |
| 1:37.2 | event, meaning it was in danger of getting hit by space debris. So the astronauts had |
| 1:42.7 | to go shelter. And as it turns out, that debris was traceable to the breakup of a specific |
... |
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