4 ms·

That test is still responsible for 30% of debris up there. And is scattered across quite a wide band of orbital altitudes.

• Gwypaas 5y ago
  Another amazingly horrifying example is Project West Ford[0] in 1963 which dispersed 480 000 000 copper needles at an altitude of ~3500 km to create an artificial ionosphere facilitating military communications. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford
  • airhead969 5y ago
    Project Obvious Idioms ended in utter failure when the haystacks were lost, creating a conundrum of Biblical proportions. Who thought it would be a great, timeless idea to dump a bunch of copper wire strands at 3.5 Mm? Oh, it was that pinhead: Walter E. Morrow. Thanks for that military-industrial complex contribution to littering. Let's stick a Tesla, Lego, and some dead people in space while we're at it. We did that already too? Why don't you tell me these things? Throw me a frickin bone here, people. Maybe we should think carefully about permanent space garbage or space sunshades before rolling with what seems like a brilliant technical solution?
  • robocat 5y ago
    “The orbit and design of the individual needles were chosen to promote rapid orbital decay and reentry into the atmosphere.”. However needles unexpectedly clumped and there are clumps of them still orbiting. Scroll down to page three of: https://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/quarterly-news/pdfs/odqnv17i4.pdf https://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/quarterly-news/pdfs/o...