No one is free from clutter. In our cars, our closets, our basements and even in the limitlessness of outer space there can be too much junk and NASA has taken notice, according to TheIslandNow.com. Some scientists fear that in their rush to create connectivity, companies are not considering the impact to the local extra-terrestrial environment when they leave their hardware behind.
“The problem with adding thousands of new satellites to orbit is that there is only so much room up there,” states NASA on its website. “When too many satellites are present, collisions can start to occur. Given that satellites travel at extremely high speeds, each collision creates a shotgun effect of debris that can damage nearby satellites. This sort of chain reaction could cripple the world’s satellite infrastructure if it gets out of hand.”
According to NASA there are 21,000 non-functioning satellites that continue to orbit the Earth that serve no purpose. These satellites, the agency says, are big enough to be mapped and tracked, but there are potentially 500,000 smaller pieces of “space junk” floating around like plastic waste in the ocean of space.
Meteorologists and the military have both cited concerns about interference from the proliferation of circling satellites. The objects themselves, and the radiation they emit, are troubling to those who see a growing clutter of man-made units in the atmosphere. The growing traffic in space also opens the discussion of who is monitoring the celestial traffic.
So far, the FCC has been the agency authorizing satellite licenses, but the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation have asked that an investigation be launched before any more satellites are launched into space. Air navigation operates on specific bandwidths that the two agencies say are compromised by satellite communications that are too close on the dial. Overlapping bandwidths could also pose a risk to national security.
In its cautionary report, TheIslandNow.com addresses the serious issues of unintended consequences of rapid 5G satellite development and suggests the wisdom of anticipating and correcting problems ahead of time, rather than cleaning up the mess later.
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