Disgrace Into Space - analysis of commercial and military use of outer space - Statistical Data Included

Ecologist, The, March, 2001 by Karl Grossman

Mining in space is a main goal of those seeking its commercial exploitation. 'Indeed, the global expansion of European technology and civilisation brought about by the terrestrial age of exploration is but a pale foreshadowing of the opportunities before us as humans move out into space,' writes John Lewis, codirector of the NASA/University of Arizona Space Engineering Research Center, in his book, Mining The Sky: Untold Riches from the Asteroids, Comets and Planets. And although penetration of space by people and their machines is but a few decades old, already the space above the Earth has become contaminated. There are now 110,000 man-made objects larger than a half-inch orbiting in the space above the Earth, and the situation has gotten so serious that NASA 'now replaces pitted orbiter windows after most flights' of space shuttles, notes a 1987 US National Research Council report that warns of potentially catastrophic collisions with space debris. The amount of 'space junk' has doubled since 1990 and now poses 'a navigational hazard,' says Norwegian space specialist Erik Tandberg. The US and Norway are planning a giant radar station to be called Globus II in Norway's Arctic specifically to better monitor orbiting debris.

'A total of over 3,000 tons of space debris surrounds the Earth today,' says Dr. Alexey Yablokov, a noted biologist and president of the Centre for Russian Environmental Policy. The 'rapid accumulation of debris' could 'complicate the further development of astronautics since there would be a direct threat of collision with debris fragments which travel at very high altitudes,' says Dr. Yablokov.

Among the junk now overhead are 37 nuclear-powered satellites put in space by the US and former Soviet Union. The operation of the satellites is over but the radioactive fuel in them is still hot and lethal and they'll be falling back to Earth in the centuries ahead.

The use of nuclear power in space -- despite serious accidents involving both the US and Soviet/Russian nuclear space programmes -- continues. The next proposed US launch of a nuclear-powered device is scheduled for 2003 when NASA plans to send a plutonium-powered space probe called Europa to the moon of Jupiter of that name. The plutonium system is to generate electricity to power onboard instruments. NASA claims it is necessary, that at that distance from the sun, photovoltaic solar cells can't serve as a substitute (as they now do on satellites because of accidents in which nuclear-powered satellites dropped to Earth dispersing radioactive material). Yet, also in 2003, the European Space Agency will be sending up its Rosetta space probe which will be using high-efficiency solar cells instead of plutonium to produce electricity -- and Rosetta is to go beyond the orbit of Jupiter to rendezvous with the comet Wirtanen.

NASA's insistence on using nuclear power in space is due, in part, to its desire to coordinate its operations with the US military which regards nuclear power as necessary for the high-powered weapons such as lasers it would like to deploy in space in coming years.