[Syncro]

Well it does get lonely out there

[steveo]

[megatherium]

she was walking all alone
down the street in the alley
her name was sally
she never saw it
when she was hit by space junk
  in new york miami beach
  heavy metal fell in cuba
  angola saudi arabia
  on xmas eve said norad
  a soviet sputnik hit africa
  india venezuela (in texas
    kansas)
  it's falling fast peru too
  it keeps coming
and now i'm mad about space junk
i'm all burned out about space junk
oooh walk & talk about space junk
it smashed my baby's head
and now my sally's dead

[cripplecreek]

I think China understands the risks just fine. The also understand that we don't see our astronauts as expendable and may be leery about putting them in an increasingly dangerous environment. They on the other hand are more willing to take the risk with the lives of their astronauts.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

China could go for the shotgun effect and just send up exploding rockets full of ball bearings in proximity to target satellites. I think their attitude would be denial of space to everyone, including themselves if it came to world conflict.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Our version of the Rings of Saturn.

[CFC__VRWC]

Is there anything at all that's not going to wipe every human on the face of the earth out of existence?

[Izzy Dunne]

Since most (all?) of the junk is metallic, how about an orbiting supermagnet?

[palmer]

All this junk will reflect sunlight back into space causing dangerous global cooling.

[kidd]

Assuming an average altitude of 1000 miles, the area covered by this space junk is about 255 million square miles. With 20,000 pieces of space junk, that works out to one piece of space junk for every 12,700 square miles. That's about one piece of junk for every area the size of the state of Maryland.

[Centurion2000]

Now, experts say, China's test Jan. 11 of an anti-satellite rocket that shattered an old satellite into hundreds of large fragments means the chain reaction will most likely start sooner.

Experts? Try idiots. Even LEO space is HUGE.

[sionnsar]

spreading chaos through the heavens.

What crappy writing. NYT subscribers get a bonus in my book for being able to read, but it ends just about there.

[rabidralph]

It's already happened.

[cavador]

I just saw a Doco on the Discovery channel about what happended to the Columbia and i really think it hit a piece of space junk in orbit, not a loose foam tile from the booster and I believe that's what damaged the wing tile that compromised the surface of the vehicle. Such a Tragedy .... May they rest in peace.
http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/home/index.html

[ThomasThomas]

I worry about this every time I bake cookies.

[Nachoman]

Mama always told me not to mount space junk.