Only problem is that a drop of paint in space travels at thousands of miles per hour, meaning they it can potentially damage a satellite, not serious damages, but when that object is a bolt or a nut, or even a screw driver, you can get some serious damage that can take down satellite communications..
We are creating our own space jail cell, so much, that engineers at DARPA, MIT, and the Air force had to create a new $110 Million telescope that has been in the works for 9 years now.
The new Telescope called the SST – Space Surveillance Telescope is capable of delivering wide-angle views of the earth’s firmament thanks to a curved CCD. This means that the Air Force’s Space Surveillance Network or the SSN, can look out for thousands of pieces of space junk, or meteors surrounding our earth.
Now, the satellite can only keep an eye on one side of the earth, so that’s not good, the system delivered it’s first images earlier this year, the Air Force was so satisfied that they are planning on eventually placing SSTs all over the world, so they can have a 360-degree surveillance blanket to keep our Spy Satellites safe from nuts and bolts and all other types of space junk.
We need to add a laser to that thing and start shooting down all that crap from outer space, I think in 2006 one of the shuttles came back to earth with a dent the size of a baseball caused by a drop of paint. Imagine getting knocked out by space paint when an astronaut is working on the ISS.
What’s even worse is that in 2008 a US Navy ship shot down a satellite using a missile, the reason was to protect the earth from hazardous fuel that could potentially contaminate the ocean, in the process, we added thousands of pieces of satellite material around our earth. So I guess this new SST is going to help us keep everything in check, that is if we can manage to put a good dozen or so around the planet, very unlikely when we already shut down the SETI Because it was to expensive to maintain, at a whopping HALF a penny per US Citizen… they expect us to pay 5 full pennies per satellite?!?!?! No way!!!
Via: Engadget