by Cas Lester
Q. What is your project going to do?
A. We are working on all these things: we are trying to improve our ability to find and track space junk; we are figuring out how to predict the orbits more accurately so we know where it will be in future; and we are working on ways to push junk around with lasers. We are using a technique from astronomy called ‘adaptive optics’ which works a bit like noise-cancelling headphones to remove the blur caused by the atmosphere. That helps us see smaller, fainter, more distant bits of space junk, and to focus laser beams more precisely on things in orbit.
Q. How much is it going to cost?
A. Our program will spend tens of millions of dollars improving our ability to manage space junk, and will use facilities worth about a hundred million dollars (£55million). That’s a lot of money, but then the value of all the satellites and spacecraft in orbit is about 900 billion dollars (over £500million) and the value of the services they provide (like GPS, communications, weather forecasting and so on) is trillions of dollars – so it’s worth spending a lot to protect them!
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First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hot Key Books
Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London EC1V 0AT
Text copyright © Cas Lester 2014
Illustrations copyright © Sam Hearn 2014
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-4714-0249-4
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