Yep, Britain's very own astronaut breaks the news . . . "Objects as small as a fleck of paint can become a hazard once they reach orbital speeds of up to 22,000 mph" And proof, if proof were needed? Now nobody can argue with that! ('22,000 mph' Just to add a little frisson to the fake nooze ) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...s-crack-ISS-window-debris-collides-craft.html
Yes, the ISS gets moved from time to time to dodge space junk. From Fraser Cain: There's a lot of space out there, but ...
Oh no! How are they going to fix that??? They say there's no issue of safety for the astronauts but I don't believe them. There's the danger of decompression of the whole module when the window breaks.
Aussies Developing Lasers to Track, Destroy Space Debris... Australia Developing Lasers to Track, Destroy Space Junk March 24, 2018 — Australian scientists say a powerful ground-based laser targeting space junk will be ready for use next year. They say there are hundreds of thousands of pieces of debris circling the Earth that have the potential to damage or destroy satellites.
News flash ! Chicken Little claims the sky (lab) is falling. Sources could not confirm Chicken Little's account. NASA confirms objects from Space collide with Earth every day, and people are warned not to be unduly concerned or alarmed and go about their daily lives.
That's probably a rational answer as to what to do about space junk falling to earth. After all, we can't really determine within a thousand miles where it is going to fall. With the Chinese space station the crash zone is bounded by certain latitudes and a guess at which continent.
Most space stuff, defunct satellites and other space junk is steered into the Junkyard orbit, and burn up pretty much on re-entry, a scuttling charge(s) helps break things up into smaller pieces to add re-entry burn up, and most un-burned stuff falls harmlessly into the oceans.
Well, that's an issue of how the problem of space junk is or should be managed, not how public relations concerning falling objects should be managed. I see that as a problem, as there are said to be 21,000 objects larger than 4" with even larger numbers more of smaller, untracked manmade objects that can still do serious damage - as the OP points out. With an increasing number of nations shooting stuff into orbit, I certainly hope they are all being responsible. But, that's not going to remove the junk that is there. And, it takes a long time for any single piece to deorbit.
Often enough fuel remains to manuver junk satellites enough to burn up and fall harmlessly into the ocean unnoticed. An explosive charge makes smaller pieces, of said Satellite, With a nice lil fireworks display on controlled re-entry..
I don't see much of a purpose for the explosion thing. It might be good to crack open some heavy component to make it more likely to burn up and thus reduce the chance of it hitting someone on reentry - something that has never happened and is highly unlikely to happen. But, any real fireworks could possibly blow bits back up into orbit, couldn't it?
A rogue nation such as N. Korea, who does have missiles that can go into space, could put billions of tiny but lethal bits of debris into the path of our known spy satellites as a permanent counter measure fairly easily. That also could be a curious low-cost way to establish a somewhat unpredictability factor as a missile defense for any nation capable of putting anything into orbit. Just put billions of upon billions of tiny BBs in space largely orbiting over their country. Any missile would have to get thru it. While not fully reliable of course, it also would make missile attack not fully reliable.
Sorry that mode of attack along with others had been plan for going on fifty years. Military and even non military satellites have one hell of a lot more fuel on board then they need for station keeping so they can dodge if it come to that. With any kind of warning even a few feet per second random vector change would get them out of harm way.Space in big and even a cloud of a billion BBs is small. Oh and good luck with the NK being able to attack anything other then in low earth orbit.
I don't see this as something we can blame on other nations. Most of that junk is ours. And, some amount is pretty hard to avoid.
