You know that scene in Wall-E where the rocket blasts through a seemingly impenetrable layer of crap orbiting the planet? Europe doesn’t want that to happen, so they drafted up some guidelines to prevent it. Turns out Australia doesn’t want it to happen either, as K-Rudd announced yesterday.
The Former PM decided to let space junk have it in his announcement of support for the EU’s guidelines:
“Everything from aircraft and ship navigation, to electronic commerce, communications, climate monitoring and disaster management, not to mention many of our defence systems, all rely on satellites.
“But all that’s being put at risk by the growing possibility of collisions with satellites and space vehicles.”
As it happens, the US has also agreed it needs to do something to counter the growing amount of debris orbiting the planet, with Hillary Clinton announcing its support of anti-Space Junk initiatives. However, as it stands, it doesn’t support the EU’s current draft guidelines. According to Clinton:
“As we begin this work, the United States has made clear to our partners that we will not enter into a code of conduct that in any way constrains our national security-related activities in space or our ability to protect the United States and our allies,”
At least we know now that should we ever use up all the planet’s resources and need to become gelatinous blobs in space, our probes will be able to break through the hopefully limited quantities of space junk orbiting the planet. Hopefully…
[via The Register]