Description:

Since 1958, western civilization’s rapid economic and military evolution has grown the population of stable Earth-orbiting objects from one - the Moon - to tens of thousands. The vast majority of these objects fall around Earth like forgotten cannonballs from an ancient war, ready to strike an unlucky passerby days, months, years, decades, or centuries after being launched. In this talk, Alan Smith, who works in space traffic management, will trace through the history of humanity’s use of space, from Sputnik, to weather satellites, to geosynchronous communications satellites, to the Global Positioning System, and the mega-constellations currently being fabricated. With each object moving in different directions at speeds many times faster than an assault rifle bullet, we’ll also explore what can be done to address this seemingly-intractable problem.