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Some progress towards regulating space debris is being made both in national and international arenas. The FAA and FCC require that licensees demonstrate plans for space debris mitigation and end-of-life disposal of satellites. For Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, this entails moving the satellite to a lower altitude where it will eventually re-enter the earth’s atmosphere and be destroyed either by burning up or crashing to Earth within 25 years of deactivation. Satellites in high Earth orbit are moved to higher orbits where they can remain for hundreds and thousands of years. Space ecology at this time consists of nothing more than having what goes up come crashing down or, alternatively, leaving it up indefinitely, orbiting the Earth, until we can figure out how to clean it up.
Recently the general assembly of the United Nations adopted guidelines on space debris mitigation from the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), which are largely based on U.S. policy, although they are non-binding and unenforceable. Hence, China has suffered no legal ramifications from trashing space with its ASAT test, and the political fallout from the test has been less than severe. Interestingly, the NY Times reported that the Bush Administration knew about the test before hand but didn’t take any actions to negotiate with China to stop it.
The problem of space debris promises to get worse in the future unless international action is taken. Worldwide, between fifty and a hundred new satellites are launched every year. Missions to the moon and beyond by the U.S., Russia, and China promise to increase space traffic and trash. The booming space tourism industry will increase the number of launches and amount of space litter. Missile defense, anti-satellite testing and a looming weapons race in pose the greatest threat to permanently trashing space. Indeed, detonating a nuclear weapon in low earth orbit could destroy most of the satellites there, in addition to producing more space trash by breaking large, manageable chunks of debris into millions of small pieces, which could render space unusable. Ironically, if space does become sufficiently trashed, the reflection of sunlight by the junk could possibly have a net cooling effect on the Earth and solve the global warming problem.