British Comedy Guide

Space Junk

This is a graphic of how much crap is currently orbiting our planet.

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It's made up of all sorts. Fragments of old spacecraft, defunct satellites, etc. Earlier this year, two satellites collided, contributing massively to the problem. Also China destroyed one of its own satellites. Those two events alone increased the space junk problem by about 40%.

As a species, we seem to be not only shitting in our own nests, but seeking new and ever more exotic locations to defecate in. I imagine First Contact with an alien species will be with a race of intergalactic bin men, who no doubt will inform us that our metaphorical wheelie bin is over-full, then refuse to take it away.

Anyway. A little closer to home, my question is this. What are you doing to save the planet? Are you recycling? Cards on the table, I'm a fairweather recycler. If the bag the council provided is full of plastic, it goes in the bin with all the other rubbish. What about you?

I no longer go out of my way to kill endangered species, I only buy land mines from fair-trade association Somalians, I save on paper by not buying the novels of Marc Peirson and I've stopped dumping toxic waste on badgers. Pleased

Looks like the moment Wall-E left the Earth, all that clutter.

I'm a recycler. I've had my moments where I've been a little lax, but then I snap right back to it. I use all natural cleaning products, using my gran's recipe for making my own. I also try to find other uses for unwanted items and I Freecycle lots of stuff.

I'll never win an ward, but I try to do my part.

Quote: Tim Walker @ November 5 2009, 3:07 AM GMT

I no longer go out of my way to kill endangered species, I only buy land mines from fair-trade association Somalians, I save on paper by not buying the novels of Marc Peirson and I've stopped dumping toxic waste on badgers. Pleased

Tim, dumping on badgers is a grand old English tradition, like fox-pissing and ferret-spunking so that's fine as I understand it.

Quote: AndreaLynne @ November 5 2009, 3:08 AM GMT

Looks like the moment Wall-E left the Earth, all that clutter.

I'm a recycler. I've had my moments where I've been a little lax, but then I snap right back to it. I use all natural cleaning products, using my gran's recipe for making my own. I also try to find other uses for unwanted items and I Freecycle lots of stuff.

I'll never win an ward, but I try to do my part.

High five!

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Quote: Lee Henman @ November 5 2009, 3:11 AM GMT

Tim, dumping on badgers is a grand old English tradition, like fox-pissing and ferret-spunking so that's fine as I understand it.

Phew! Always found The Country Code so confusing...

*goes into the garden for a spot of hedgehog-teasing*

I have an infuriating habit of running nuisance-type animals over. I've accidentally hit 4 skunk, 2 opossums, 1 red fox, and 6 woodchucks. The woodchucks were all at my folks' house and were getting into their garden, so I feel I was indirectly doing my part. (They have an insanely long driveway that's poorly lit and the stupid bastards have always run right out in front of my car.)

Lee, I'm sure your intentions are good, but a few things -

1. Your globe and satellitte graphic isn't exactly to scale - unless their are space stations the size of frikkin' Finland floating around in orbit. This is some dreamed up hippy representation of objects in orbit and has been designed to tug at the guilt strings of middle class cry babies who like to complain about non-existent problems.

2. Whatever green measures we take in the UK is only the tiniest drop in the ocean on a global scale. 'Ooh, I switched off my television tonight and put some papers in the recycle bin.' Yeah, so what? The combined populations of China and India are using up so much power and resources that even if Britain didn't exist, it would make no difference. You are on a metaphorical hiding to nothing and existentially weeing in the wind.

3. Space is full of crap anyway, mostly bits of rock and ice. Look at Saturn, it's surrounded by dirt. If you were to take every satellitte and space station ever shot into orbit and put it into a pile, I doubt it would cover 1 square mile.

4. Going Green has become the new religion amongst a certain demographic of society who feel powerless in a Godless universe. The fact that people proudly display their green credentials at any given opportunity with a holier then thou attitude just reaffirms my assumptions and re-enforces the religious overtones.

If you recycle and care about the planet, then great, I'm glad you do. I flush my turds after having a shit, but I don't go around all day telling people.

5. It doesn't matter what inaccuracies I point out, the Enviro-mentals will still keep banging on about how important it is to reduce my carbon footprint or whatever. Why? Because the Government has told them to. Why? Because our Government signed an agreement with third world countries that says they can pollute as much as they want and we in the West will reduce our pollution to accomodate their planned industrialisations.

6. The same people who put their wine bottles in the recycler are the same people who fly all over the world every year. It's a bit like switching to economy light bulbs and then setting fire to tyres in your back garden.

7. 5 a Day was invented by Hitler - not really but I needed a light hearted seventh point to round off my trademark rant.

Quote: Renegade Carpark @ November 5 2009, 3:53 AM GMT

Lee, I'm sure your intentions are good, but a few things -

1. Your globe and satellitte graphic isn't exactly to scale - unless their are space stations the size of frikkin' Finland floating around in orbit. This is some dreamed up hippy representation of objects in orbit and has been designed to tug at the guilt strings of middle class cry babies who like to complain about non-existent problems.

The graphic is actually by NASA. The dots aren't meant to represent scale, more location really.

I like to think of it as insulation, not junk. Would you really want this planet floating naked in space?

Our house is fairly green in that we recycle and don't use a car every day and share baths Cool. It probably doesn't help much, but it's all I can do.

Quote: Lee Henman @ November 5 2009, 11:41 AM GMT

The graphic is actually by NASA.

I wouldn't be surprised if that graphic didn't come from NASA. Looks like someone simply plotted the 2-line elements of known debris using STK (Satellite Toolkit.)

Quote: DaButt @ November 5 2009, 12:10 PM GMT

I wouldn't be surprised if that graphic didn't come from NASA. Looks like someone simply plotted the 2-line elements of known debris using STK (Satellite Toolkit.)

Maybe it was created by someone else on behalf of NASA so small children could see all the satellite's in space - little realising that the Green Meanies would hijack it for propaganda distribution.

It's kind of off putting to do any recycling around here, when you read a stories in the paper about bin men collecting the recycled box and just dumping it in the waste truck like it's normal rubbish Rolling eyes.

Check here for the latest predictions of possible satellite collisions:

http://celestrak.com/SOCRATES/

This site allows you to enter your location and it will spit out a list of satellites that you can see with the naked eye shortly before sunrise or after sunset. The space station has grown huge and is often easy to spot in the night sky.

http://www.heavens-above.com/

Quote: DaButt @ November 5 2009, 12:10 PM GMT

I wouldn't be surprised if that graphic didn't come from NASA. Looks like someone simply plotted the 2-line elements of known debris using STK (Satellite Toolkit.)

It's on their website http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/photogallery/beehives.html

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