I love when they talk about distance in space... A near miss is like 500,000 miles away.

2 Miles I suppose is rather close, BUT it's still 2 miles!

Can't they just shoot it, Asteroids style?

I agree, 2 miles is not "extremely close" -- I'd say uh... 6 feet is extremely close. lol.

Straight out of Idiocracy.

One word: debris.

I know you were making a joke, but the one thing you don't want to do is make MORE debris in orbital space. What would be really good is if we could figure out a way to mount some sort of weapon (such as a recoiless ice cannon), that could be used to shoot at passing junk to hopefully knock it into a decaying orbit. If you miss, the ice projectile will quickly sublime so it won't add to the problem.

How fast is it moving? Cause if it's moving at 70 million miles a minute like everything else in space, 2 miles is a sneeze away

Space junk is a major problem for orbiting satellites, including space stations and shuttles. Even a fleck of paint moving at orbital velocities can hit with forces similar to a bullet from a high-powered rifle. And unless it decays in orbit, it'll remain up there for decades or centuries. What's worse, each launch puts more and more of this junk into orbit. And the more there is, the more likely are collisions between junk and other junk, or junk and satellites, etc., which, as jellico said, would just create even more junk bodies floating around a thousands of miles per hour. So as time goes on, the danger for future missions will only increase unless we can find ways to nudge the debris back into the atmosphere, where most of it will burn up.

I know how NASA feels. I barely dodged an encounter with my horrible ex girlfriend today, by about 2 miles. I might need to relocate.

in space it is. what if the rocket stage hits something and causes it to break in to little pieces...suddenly to me 2 miles dose not seem so far away. just imagine your self being up there on station. how would you feel if there was a possibility of some sort of object ripping through the hull like its tinfoil. there just being precocious. i mean there is only 1 space station up there after all!

2 miles sounds a pretty dumb thing to call "close", but, remember - they're estimating it off it's projected path. Margins of error may allow those astronauts (and all of their jobs as well as several hundred millions dollars of equipment) alive in every system and method they use up there.

Yes - two miles is close. Especially when you consider that space debris tends to travel as a cloud of associated objects that only slowly drift apart into varying orbits. If I new an old piece of a rocket stage was swinging by within a few miles, I'd really be thinking more about smaller, co-orbital fragments, paint chips (see WheelsOfConfusion above), etc.

2 miles it a bit close when both objects are traveling at a few thousand miles. Though I'm not sure of the speed difference between the 2.

"if it continues it's current path"

What if the space junk suddenly feels like defying the laws of physics and turn left?

I've always hated that something passing closely by was referred to as a "near miss." I always thought of it as a near hit, as in it nearly hit the other object lol... A near miss would be a collision, as in it nearly missed the other object.

Where's Gordon Freeman and his gravity gun when you need it

It would be greatly beneficial if we could clean up all the space junk out there

2 miles is close in terms of outer space.

How did they spot it? Or do they put trackers on the rocket casings so they know where they are or something?

Considering that it would be 100% fatal for all on board if it came in contact with any of the shuttle or station (except maybe the very end of a solar cell) they take this sort of thing very seriously. The good thing about the station's relatively low orbit is that it is in a range where decay happens relatively quickly (on the order of a few years) so it only has to worry about new or rapidly changing debris.

Would all the UFO's please take extra care on Friday? Thank you very much.

Yours sincerely,

Mankind.

just hire goku!!! or is he working for the chinese!!?!?! pray to god he isnt...

Umm...isn't the temp in space like -200C? So wouldn't the ice still be there? I don't see how it would sublimate quickly, it will eventually melt(?) due to heat/radiation from the Sun.

Their thumbs are probably crippled from all those years of space invaders. How can they possibly expect to shoot it down?

nuke it

I think we need the Boeing lasers to vaporize these junks!

But can the sharks aim that accurately from the fish tank at Boeing's HQ?

nuke it

Here we have a fantastic example of what could happen after a "space war", millions of left-over projectiles circling the earth at speeds 10-20 times faster than a bullet that represent instant death for any craft that tries to fly through - an effective end to safe space travel from Earth. Amazing are the bastards in the aerospace industry that have the gall to build cluster rockets and such in the name of "national defense".

One word: debris.[/citation]

yeah? in Asteroids when you shoot it it breaks in to debris, then you just shoot the debris!

I think your underetemating Asteroids' merit as a space emergency management simulator.

They track all debris in orbital space above a certain size so they can assess the potential risk to satelites, the shuttle, the space station, etc.

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usspc-fs/space.htm