Why recycle my plastic bottles?!

This article is about cyber crime and hijacking satellites, which could probably send us back to the 1960's...which I don't think is such a bad thing, but the point I'd like to make is this:

It's also getting crowded up there. Since the space race began in the late 1950s, more than 6,500 satellites have been sent up, of which only 994 are still operational.

If this is what our planet really looks like from outer space, I hope ET's never show up, cause I'd be soooo embarrassed of the mess floating about our gorgeous planet
It makes me wonder...who's the poor guy that's gotta sit and photoshop all the pictures we have of our blue marble, that's always been shown as this beautiful planet, serenely floating through space. This is not a pretty picture, and makes me think: "Why bother recycling my plastic bottles, if they can't be bothered to recycle space waste?

reply to post by 3Dplus


That picture isn't what it really looks like. You would see all that from the earth too. You can look up and see satellites glinting in the sunlight at night... They're small..

Oh and don't use plastic bottles, just filter it...

Plastic bottles are easier to get to than space junk don't you think? Also as far as space junk goes gravity will eventually do the recycling.

So it doesn't really look like that? And they're small?

There's over 16000 pieces of debris 10cm big...over 3000 satelites, but only 1000 in working order. Surely a satellite is bigger than say, a grown man. It will be seen, whether as clear as the picture or not. It's still there, why don't they clean it up?

My mum used to say: "If the space around you is cluttered, your brain is cluttered too, and you can't think clearly" (this was her motivation for me to clean my room) but since growing up, I realised she was speaking the truth. If your office,house, car is messy, you can't find stuff, and your brain gets all muddled.

Whether we see the debris or not, it's there, and muddling earth's brain

reply to post by buster2010


Apparently not, if you look at the floating islands of plastic. A small problem can over a period of time turn into a BIG mess.

reply to post by 3Dplus


I don't think you realize what you are saying...

How many cars are on the earth? Like what a billion? And you are talking about 7 thousand satellites. That's 140,000 times as many cars as their are satellites. Now.. If there were cars on the whole surface of the earth...

I don't think you realize how big this all is... The Surface area of a Sphere gets really big 1,000-2,000 miles up in space... That's added to about 4,000 miles earth radius, so 5,500 mile radius? That's 380,133,000 square miles.. Of space on one radius that they can all fit on... 1 satellite every 54,000 sq miles... which in a straight line slose as possible is one satellite every 230 miles, if they were all in One line, all at the same distance, all at the same angle..

If it was a problem they would worry about it. Seeing as how it would cut into their profits. Meanwhile all that junk is slowly falling back to earth...

Plastic bottles just by MASS alone are a WAY bigger problem.

All of that "junk" in orbit will someday be used as "resources" for future space exploration. Lots of usable material floating around up there.

I recall hearing something in the past several months about a European idea to use new satellites to help bring down the dead ones and start cleaning up the mess before all that junk runs into itself and breaks into even more bits of junk. It might be a bit rough in what are sure to be occasional "oops" moments of satellite pieces coming down intact when no one thought they would or landing where no one thought they should. As I've read about it though, the very real problem of the debris multiplying exponentially as it collides in ever less predictable ways IS something they're working on trying to do something about.

Heck, eventually it could become downright risky to just transition out of the atmosphere, lest some "Made in Taiwan" part comes along and sideswipes our rising craft right out of it's path. That would really be tacky to lose a spacecraft from litter that way.

If it was a problem they would worry about it.

Do you really believe that?! In this day and age?

Thank you for putting it in perspective for me, that picture really had me hotwired. I understand it's not as bad as the picture makes it look, and it's a bit of a relief. But my point still stands...if you leave a small problem for too long, it gets outta hand.

How big is a plastic 1L milk bottle, but leave your recycling for too long, and you have floating islands. The space age only really kicked off in the 70's, satellites probably even later than that. At this rate tho, I think they (whoever "they" are) should slowly but surely, maybe even one or two a year maybe, take the garbage out.

Virgin Galactic would not like their first space tourists to see a "dirty space", I'm sure?