tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18052302.post8398968965650420507..comments2024-03-23T11:23:29.270-04:00Comments on Music of the Spheres: WALL-E: The Trash Route to Space ColoniesFlyingSingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12015886527228889332noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18052302.post-3874039002920420992008-07-17T13:34:00.000-04:002008-07-17T13:34:00.000-04:00Wall-E totally looks like the robot from "Short Ci...Wall-E totally looks like the robot from "Short Circuit"... minus the cheesy 80's style of courseAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18052302.post-16278650094419074472008-07-09T08:31:00.000-04:002008-07-09T08:31:00.000-04:00Space junk is a real and growing problem, but the ...Space junk is a real and growing problem, but the scene in WALL-E of the departing space ship poking through a nearly solid layer of bumper-to-bumper old satellites is still quite an exaggeration. The FreeFlyer video is really cool, and 13,000+ is a lot of objects to track, but note that this includes everything that can be tracked by radar, probably down to a few centimeters in size. So think about this...<BR/><BR/>Let's assume that all 13,000 objects are in various circular orbits at 200 km altitude. Adding 200 to the 6378 km radius of the Earth, you've got a sphere of r=6578 km. Square this and multiply by 4pi and the surface area is about 544 million square kilometers. Divide this by 13,000 and the average area for each object is about 42,000 sq. km. which corresponds to a square about 205 km (128 miles) on a side. Not exactly bumper to bumper.<BR/><BR/>Of course the objects are not uniformly distributed at one altitude, but this actually helps. So it's not worse than what they show in WALL-E, and we can still operate spacecraft like the ISS and many unmanned satellites for years at a time without them bumping into anything bigger than dust particles. But it certainly is a serious problem because we don't want to lose a life or even a spacecraft to a high-speed screw, space glove, or exploded satellite part.FlyingSingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12015886527228889332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18052302.post-38550876485164494622008-07-09T01:20:00.000-04:002008-07-09T01:20:00.000-04:00Remember the parts where they showed all of the sp...Remember the parts where they showed all of the space junk circling the earth? Want to see some reality? What they showed in the movie was actually LESS than what is really there right now. Take a look here and see the top movie (TLE5) ... that is a true simulation of current space debris made by aiSolutions which specializes in Space Industry software tools :<BR/><BR/>http://www.ai-solutions.com/freeflyer/movies/movielist.aspAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18052302.post-20100332260643740762008-07-05T20:21:00.000-04:002008-07-05T20:21:00.000-04:00I just saw this movie today (with my brother).It w...I just saw this movie today (with my brother).<BR/><BR/>It was surprisingly good and I loved how it tied space, waste and taking care of our planet.<BR/><BR/>~DarnellAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18052302.post-18653291531090041142008-06-30T20:10:00.000-04:002008-06-30T20:10:00.000-04:00a very nice movie !a very nice movie !Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com