As Chiron, the Awakener, continues its journey through Aquarius (a sign associated with invention and innovation), we should expect to see more revelations of the consequences and limitations of our technologically dependent culture. Below are two events that illustrate one aspect of these limitations we’re now discovering: from near-orbit space to the depths of the sea, from satellites to submarines, we appear to be running out of optimal space to operate our machines.
In each incident technology failed to prevent what could have been two disasterous collisions. Chiron alerts us to problems that require our attention. Clearly, these events prove that over-crowding in our skies and seas is a reality that can no longer be ignored.
At a press conference Monday, Feb. 16, the British Navy admitted that the night of Feb. 4 two nuclear submarines — one British, one French — collided underwater.В
While the British Ministry of Defence is downplaying the accident, calling it an “infinitesimal” coincidence that they’d been the same place at the same time,В the BBC isn’t buying the story: “[The claim] is undermined because NATO allies routinely share information at a top-secret level about the deployment of submarines to ensure they do not occupy the same area of ocean, an arrangement in which the French, whose nuclear deterrent remains independent, are understood to participate.”
The collision occurred, however, in a well-trafficked depth of the North Atlantic preferred by British, French, American, and even Russian nuclear submarines.
Satellites Collide: An Update
Following up on last week’s satellite smash-up — Russia’s Mission Control Chief, Vladimir Solovyov, thinks debris from the two destroyed satellites could hang around for 10,000 years. This is a problem because the debris in a well-trafficked zone for satellites: “800 kilometers is a very popular orbit which is used by Earth-tracking and communications satellites. The clouds of debris pose a serious danger to them.”
According to an AP story,В Solovyov asserted that even tiny fragments could pose a serious threat to spacecraft. Both are made of light alloys and travel at high speed; even small bits have the potential to damage spacecraft and satellites they encounter.
While the US military can track objects as small as a baseball, it lacks the resources to track every bit of space junk, says a spokesperson from US Strategic Command.В
This concerns both government and private developers: “With the amount of spacecraft and debris in orbit, the probability of collisions is going up more rapidly,” said John Higginbotham, in the AP story. Higginbotham is chief executive of Integral Systems Inc., a Lanham, Md.-based company that runs ground support systems for satellites.
The space station is further out. In the subscriber edition, where we introduced the story, we included a graphic that explained the relative positions of each. Thus far both the Mir and the Hubble appear to be safely out of this debris zone.
Thanks for asking.
This additional space garbage is not going to affect the international space station is it? Is that further out?