The space debris problem continues to grow as diplomats move at a snail’s pace to take remedial steps. Every piece of space debris about the size of a marble is a lethal weapon, traveling with the approximate energy of a one-ton safe dropped from a five-story building. Whatever it strikes will create a new mutating, lethal debris field. NASA’s David J. Kessler published a seminal article in 1978 in which he forecast that pinball effects created by successive collisions would eventually make low Earth orbit unsustainable for space operations.

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