Sky Static: The Space Debris Crisis

(Hardback)

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Description

Space junk crashing into Earth is a real and escalating danger. Milne provides the first synthesis of the interdisciplinary work of the scientific community, which has been investigating how the satellite industry can be protected from manmade and natural space hazards. The result is an invaluable book for those concerned with space missions and space disasters, those worried about cosmic radiation and its effects on humans, members of the Spaceguard defense movement, and anyone concerned with defense and international cooperation efforts in general. Tens of millions of objects may exist in space, ranging in size from grains of sand to entire rocket boosters. Many fireballs seen in the skies, often thought to be UFOs, are in fact manmade debris. Plutonium and other highly toxic fuels from failed Russian craft have already contaminated inhabited areas of Central Asia. Natural hazards such as comet particles can travel at 100 times the speed of a bullet and can severely damage satellites. There is also the danger of spaceweather effects, such as cosmic rays, that could interfere with a spacecraft's electronics and interrupt the global transmission of telephones and television.

Reviews

Antony Milne poses some intriguing questions about the safety of space travel, especially in light of of the space shuttle Columbia accident in February....No other book focuses on the vast amount of existing space junk, its potential hazard for astronauts as well as people on the ground, and efforts to guard against it.-College & Research Libraries News
General readers; two-year technical program students.-Choice
Space is full of meteors, solar radiation and old bits of hardware left over from spacecraft. But does it really matter Most of the time it just causes sporadic loss of data, but this book argues that sooner or later we should expect a catastrophe.-Euroabstracts
"General readers; two-year technical program students."-Choice
"Space is full of meteors, solar radiation and old bits of hardware left over from spacecraft. But does it really matter Most of the time it just causes sporadic loss of data, but this book argues that sooner or later we should expect a catastrophe."-Euroabstracts
"Antony Milne poses some intriguing questions about the safety of space travel, especially in light of of the space shuttle Columbia accident in February....No other book focuses on the vast amount of existing space junk, its potential hazard for astronauts as well as people on the ground, and efforts to guard against it."-College & Research Libraries News

Author Bio

ANTONY MILNE is a senior associate with Spaceguard UK and was formerly an analyst with NATO's Scientific Affairs Division. Among his five earlier books is Doomsday: The Science of Catastrophic Events (Praeger, 2000).