Space pollution refers to the gathering debris in orbit around the Earth, made up of discarded rocket boosters, broken satellites, and more. And just like the other types of pollution, space pollution is a cause for increasing concern as the amount of material continues to grow. In this activity, you will learn about environmental factors that affect space exploration.

Just as with political factors, environmental factors associated with space are real problems. What country is responsible for protecting space from environmental pollution? For example, what if a country that has the ability to launch into space decides that putting its nuclear waste from power plants and other places into space is a way to get rid of the problem here on Earth? They launch a rocket containing the materials. This rocket is an extreme hazard to anybody coming into contact with it. It might be 100 years before someone comes into contact with it, or that rocket may explode on the launch pad causing a huge disaster right here on Earth.

Just as with privatized space exploration, it is too expensive for any one country to "clean up" space. It will take an international effort for this to be successful. It will also take every country acknowledging that they cannot launch anything into space that is a known hazard to anyone coming across it.

@creativecommons

 

In 2014, the International Space Station had to move three times to avoid lethal chunks of space debris. This problem also threatens crucial and costly satellites in orbit. 

At the moment, NASA officials estimate that about 500,000 pieces of debris larger than a marble orbit the planet. There are 22,000 bits of junk as big as a softball, and there could be more than 100 million tiny fragments at least 1 millimetre across racing around Earth. So what can we do to clean up all of that space junk?