A Sense of Responsibility

Isn't it interesting how groups can act with myopic irresponsibility?

A recent action by the Chinese has increased the risk to any property or lives on orbit around the earth for thousands of years to come. Yet these same people have stated their intent to establish a permanent space station as well as visit the moon quite soon.

According to an article in Aviation Week & Space Technology, published January 18, 2007, an aging weather satellite was the successful target of a "kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile." David Wright, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, as reported by MSNBC, stated that the target satellite could have created nearly 40,000 fragments between 1 and 10 centimeters in size. Mr. Wright also made a statement to New Scientist, in an article published January 20, 2007, that this action has doubled "the amount of debris of that size at similar altitudes". It should be no surprise to learn that, as reported by New Scientist, that this action "may also have created 2 million fragments wider than 1 millimetre across".

This debris-spewing folly occurred only one month before NASA pulled the plug on an experiment called LAD-C. To have been conducted onboard the International Space Station, LAD-C sought to "characterise the environment" in earth orbit with regard to micrometeorites (including man-made versions). As reported by New Scientist in an article published February 12, 2007, the Chinese "test" also created "more than 900 objects larger than 10 cm across", that the "debris spread throughout low-Earth orbit, from altitudes of 200 to nearly 4000 kilometres" and that (some of) the debris is "expected to stay in space for hundreds of thousands of years."

To those who may be unfamiliar with the threat of space debris, the size range from 1 millimeter to 1 centimeter is very dangerous. Impacting anything at velocities up to 7,500 meters per second is going to be a problem. A single 1 millimeter speck of aluminum could pack quite a wallop - equivalent to a round from an AK-47 assault rifle (around 1500 J). Space suits and (most) spacecraft are not designed to resist shots from an assault rifle.

To have over 2 million of these things suddenly let loose in a popular area is irresponsible. Typical of nations, China wanted to demonstrate their ability to command at least part of the military high ground. Jeez, couldn't you have just done something spectacular that didn't screw up the highway of the future?

On top of all that, a cloud of uncountable sub-millimeter particles were also created. Even they are nothing you would want to reckon with in space. J. C. Liou, a member of the LAD-C experiment team, pointed out that the Space Shuttle usually requires a couple of their quartz windows to be replaced after a flight - because of impacts with sub-millimeter particles. In the same article referenced earlier, Mr. Liou also pointed out that the now-dead LAD-C experiment was to create a base of knowledge that we could use to appropriately design the space hotels and lunar bases so many have said we're poised to do. Soon. Maybe.

So here we return to responsibility. Responsibility to yourself, your own people and to the world and all of its people. While this test was, no doubt, viewed as a magnificent success in the halls of Chinese government, it was a dismal failure on the world stage. A demonstration of proving technology didn't require such deadly pollution to be rendered, but it certainly was an expedient way to make a statement with emphasis. The short term, as so often is the case, outweighed the long term considerations.