Editorial: Junking the final frontier

Saturday, Feb. 10, 2007 | 7:11 a.m.

While global warming is grabbing the headlines and the attention of governments worldwide, another potentially catastrophic chain of events is unfolding in outer space.

More than 10,000 pieces of debris left behind by past space missions and test explosions are locked in orbit around the Earth. They have created a belt of trash that space experts predict will one day start a chain reaction of celestial collisions that would create more junk and expand for centuries.

Recently added to this rubbish belt - which includes chunks of old rocket engines, discarded satellites, bolts, gloves and about 200 bags of trash ejected from the Mir space station - are about 1,000 fragments created Jan. 11 by a Chinese antisatellite rocket test, which blew an old satellite to bits. Scientists recently told The New York Times that they fear this latest explosion may start the chain reaction far sooner than previously predicted.

NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office Web site says that the risks posed to functioning orbiting spacecraft that provide us with telecommunications and meteorological services are considered minimal, as the orbit used by such equipment is considered "a special natural resource" to be protected. Spacecraft operators jettison items no longer needed "into higher, disposable orbits" to cut down on the chances of collisions, NASA says.

Still, our space shuttles must dodge the mess with every launch. And NASA admits that it cannot fully detect debris at the levels at which the telecommunications and meteorological equipment orbits. Given that scientists say that a massive chain reaction of colliding debris could push space junk into farther reaches of the universe, the true risks of satellite collisions likely are unknown.

One wonders whether we will ever learn. Centuries ago explorers ventured into new, seemingly infinite regions of the Earth, leaving behind diseases that wiped out whole populations of native people. Through exploration and exploitation of natural resources, we have learned that the oceans' depths, the vastness of deserts and arctic ice caps and the life-sustaining rain forests are, in fact, limited and finite. Space, we are learning, may be no different. We just hope that we aren't learning too late.