Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Space Debris Affirmative Space Debris Affirmative .............................................................................................................. 1

Inherency (1/6)........................................................................................................................................3Inherency (2/6)........................................................................................................................................4Inherency (3/6)........................................................................................................................................5Inherency (4/6)........................................................................................................................................6Inherency (5/6)........................................................................................................................................7Inherency (6/6)........................................................................................................................................8Brink: Collisions (1/2)...............................................................................................................................9Brink: Collisions (2/3).............................................................................................................................10Brink: Collisions (3/3).............................................................................................................................11Brink: Kessler Syndrome (1/2)...............................................................................................................12Brink: Kessler Syndrome (2/2)...............................................................................................................13Brink: A lot of Debris (1/6).....................................................................................................................14Brink: A lot of Debris (2/6).....................................................................................................................15Brink: A lot of Debris (3/6).....................................................................................................................16Brink: A lot of Debris (4/6).....................................................................................................................17Brink: A lot of Debris (5/6).....................................................................................................................18Brink: A lot of Debris (6/6).....................................................................................................................19Brink: Space Debris Clean-Up Necessary...............................................................................................20Brink: ISS................................................................................................................................................22Brink: Other...........................................................................................................................................23LEO Orbit = High Amount of Space Debris.............................................................................................25Advantage 1: Satellites (1/6).................................................................................................................26Advantage 1: Satellites (2/6).................................................................................................................27Advantage 1: Satellites (3/6).................................................................................................................28Advantage 1: Satellites (4/6).................................................................................................................29Advantage 1: Satellites (5/6).................................................................................................................30Advantage 1: Satellites (6/6).................................................................................................................31Advantage 3: Accidental War................................................................................................................32Advantage 5: Hubble Telescope Add-On...............................................................................................33Advantage 6: Spin-Offs Add-On.............................................................................................................34Advantage 7: ISS Add-On.......................................................................................................................35Orion Solvency (1/6)..............................................................................................................................37Orion Solvency (2/6)..............................................................................................................................38Orion Solvency (3/6)..............................................................................................................................39Orion Solvency (4/6)..............................................................................................................................40Orion Solvency (5/6)..............................................................................................................................41Orion Solvency (6/6)..............................................................................................................................42Tungsten Solvency (1/4)........................................................................................................................43Tungsten Solvency (1/3)........................................................................................................................44Tungsten Solvency (2/3)........................................................................................................................45Tungsten Solvency (3/3)........................................................................................................................46Catcher’s Mitt Solvency.........................................................................................................................47

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

EDDE Solvency (1/3)..............................................................................................................................48EDDE Solvency (2/3)..............................................................................................................................49EDDE Solvency (3/3)..............................................................................................................................50Space Vacuum Solvency........................................................................................................................51Sub-Orbital Payload Solvency................................................................................................................52Electro Dynamic Tether System Solvency..............................................................................................53Terminator Tape Solvency.....................................................................................................................55Terminator Tape Solvency.....................................................................................................................56US key (1/4)...........................................................................................................................................57US key (2/4)...........................................................................................................................................58US key (3/4)...........................................................................................................................................59US key (4/4)...........................................................................................................................................60Plan comes first.....................................................................................................................................61Small Debris > Threat (1/4)....................................................................................................................62Small Debris > Threat (2/4)....................................................................................................................63Small Debris > Threat (3/4)....................................................................................................................64Small Debris > Threat (4/4)....................................................................................................................65Large Debris > Threat (1/2)....................................................................................................................66Large Debris > Threat (2/2)....................................................................................................................67Topicality Definitions (Aff).....................................................................................................................68A2: Perception/Militarization DA (1/2)..................................................................................................69A2: Perception/Militarization DA (2/2)..................................................................................................70A2: Econ/Spending DA...........................................................................................................................71A2: Privatization CP...............................................................................................................................72

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Inherency (1/6)

Inherency is on the brink – past efforts for international regulation have come apart due to recent debris accumulation and there are no legally binding restrictions.Wright 7 (David, Codirector and senior scientist, Global security program, Union of Concerned Scientists, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Physics Today, Space Debris, October 2007, EBSCO - Vol. 60 Issue 10, p35-40, SP)

International efforts are under way to control the production of debris from routine space activity. In the mid-1990s the US developed and released a set of debris-mitigation guidelines; subsequently other countries developed similar national guidelines. In 2002 the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee adopted a consensus set of guidelines,( n4) and in June 2007 the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) adopted a set of mitigation guidelines based on the IADC guidelines.( n5) To reduce the production of debris in space, all the guidelines call for measures such as designing satellites and rocket stages to limit the release of mission-related debris and depleting propellant from nonoperational satellites or stages to reduce the risk of explosions. By calling for spent stages and satellites to be removed from orbit, the guidelines also attempt to control the number of large objects in space that could break up due to collisions. Unfortunately, the guidelines are not legally binding. Nevertheless, those efforts appear to have been partially successful. The number of objects in the catalog increased roughly linearly from 1960 through the mid-1990s, but it rose at a much slower rate from 1997 through 2006, in part due to a significant reduction in the release of mission-related and fragmentation debris.( n6) Unfortunately, the January ASAT test and the Briz-M explosion in February that is estimated to have created at least 1000 trackable fragments appear to have essentially undone the gains in the previous decade. The explosion of the Briz-M stage could likely have been prevented by strict adherence to the IADC guidelines, which call for venting unused propellants. There are currently no international restrictions on the testing or use of military systems intended to destroy satellites.

Any increase in fragmentation makes space impassable, there are no programs to remove debris in the squo, and the problem won’t solve itself.Wilder 10 (Benjamin, Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy, B.S., University of South Alabama, Naval Postgraduate School, Thesis for a Master of Science in Physics at the Naval Postgraduate School, Power Beaming, Orbital Debris Removal, And Other Space Applications Of A Ground Based Free Electron Laser, March 2010, http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada518696.pdf, SP)

Considering the alarming rate of orbital debris generation, the era of mankind’s open and relatively simple access to space may be coming to an end. Any increase of fragmentation events, such as through a future war with anti-satellite engagements or simply from the continued collisions in crowded orbits, has the potential to render those orbits virtually useless for generations to come. If the Chinese ASAT engagement above generated ~3,000 pieces of debris, an anti-satellite war that destroys only 10 satellites could immediately double the current debris population, and this large debris field would spread over time to other orbits ”near” the parent satellite. Currently, there are no programs for the removal of space debris from orbit, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has only recently enacted guidelines to limit the creation of orbital debris. Likewise, the space debris problem will not “solve itself” in the near future. The anticipated orbital lifetime of debris in the 8001100 km range is on the order of 10,000 years [52, p. 576]. The space tug concept discussed in Chapter V may be one method to reduce the amount of large debris, such as rocket bodies and non-functional spacecraft, by hauling these items into lower disposal orbits that experience higher atmospheric drag. Similarly, by reducing the larger parent objects, much of the future fragmentation debris growth could be avoided. For smaller debris, the most-promising, near-term method of debris removal is through the illumination of debris clouds with a high energy laser to lower the perigee of their orbits as proposed by Project Orion.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Inherency (2/6)

Space debris increasing and jeopardizing access to space. Clark 10 (Stuart Clark is a widely read astronomy journalist and holds a first class honours degree and a PhD in astrophysics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a former Vice Chair of the Association of British Science Writers. He writes for the Space Agency as senior editor for space science. In addition, he writes articles and news for New Scientist, The Times, BBC Focus and BBC Sky at Night and is a former editor of Astronomy Now magazine. Stuart was the Director of Public Astronomy Education at the University of Hertfordshire., New Scientist, Who you gonna call? Junk busters! 9/11/2010; http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=14&sid=7ac5f409-0ed2-4624-9745d27b1812ca59%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=58665244, rn)

While the orbital equivalent of a used-car salesman selling satellite parts is some way off, the need to do more about space junk is immediate. "Our future ability to use space is directly jeopardised by space debris," says Szoka. Encouragingly, the European Space Agency has signed a contract with Spanish company Indra Espacio to develop a radar system to track space debris. In the US, Ball Aerospace and Technologies has collaborated with Boeing on the Space Based Space Surveillance satellite, a dedicated space-junk telescope awaiting launch. "It is very urgent that we begin to remove mass from orbit," says Klinkrad. Even as we talk, his team is beginning another tracking campaign. Something is stalking ESA's ERS-1 satellite, and they have to decide in the next day or two whether or not to use precious fuel to move the spacecraft. As Klinkrad says in a resigned voice, "This is becoming an everyday situation."

No action taken at eliminating space debris now-only preventive measures taken. David 11(Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year’s National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for Space.com since 1999., space.com, Ugly truth of space junk: No feasible solutions Debris continues to multiply, but there's no affordable way to eliminate it , 5/10/11, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42975224/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/ugly-truth-space-junk-no-feasible-solutions/, rn)

Tough neighborhood From a probability point of view, Shelton added, smaller satellites, more debris, more debris is going to run into more debris, creating more debris. It may be a pretty tough neighborhood," Shelton continued, in low-Earth orbit and geosynchronous Earth orbit "in the not too distant future." When asked if the U.S. Air Force plans on funding space debris mitigation capability, Shelton responded: "We haven’t found a way yet that is affordable and gives us any hope for mitigating space debris. The best we can do, we believe, is to minimize debris as we go forward with our operations. As we think about how we launch things, as we deploy satellites, minimizing debris is absolutely essential and we’re trying to convince other nations of that imperative as well." Shelton said that, unfortunately, with the duration of most things on orbit, "you get to live with the debris problem for many, many years and in some cases decades. So minimizing debris is important to us and it should be to other nations as well."

The status quo of just mitigation of the debris already in orbit is insufficient, we must actively engage in the removal of space debris to save the space around earth.Ansdell in 10 (Master in international Science and Technology Policy at the University’s Elliott school of International Affairs with a focus on space policy, Princeton Journal of Public and International Affairs, Space Debris Removal, http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf, AX)

Efforts to reduce space debris have focused on mitigation rather than removal. Although mitigation is important, studies show it will be insufficient to stabilize the long-term space debris environment. In this century, increasing collisions between space objects will create debris faster than it is removed naturally by atmospheric drag (Liou and Johnson 2006). Yet, no active space debris removal systems currently exist and there have been no serious attempts to develop them in the past. The limited number of historical impact events fails to give the situation a sense of urgency outside the space debris community. Further, though mitigation techniques are relatively cheap and can be easily integrated into current space activities, active removal will require developing new and potentially expensive systems. The remainder of this paper addresses the current space debris debate and options to develop effective space debris removal systems.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Inherency (3/6)

Space debris is a human-made environmental problem which requires immediate regulations to solve. David 11(Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999., Space.com, How to Clean Up Space Junk: DARPA's Orbital Catcher's Mitt, 5/13/11;http://www.space.com/11657-space-junk-orbital-debris-cleanup-darpa.html, rn)

In the big picture, Pulliam said that he considers orbital debris a human-made environmental problem Although space is not an ecosystem per se, the problem is dependent on the cumulative effects of human activity over and above the ability of the nature system to balance like any other environmental challenge," Pulliam said. Additionally, Pulliam advised that the constraints on finding an agreeable, cost-effective solution are remarkably similar to other current environmental issues. Specifically, the orbital debris problem can be characterized as a "tragedy of the commons." The problem can also be explained by what is called "common but differentiated responsibility," which is also seen in other worldwide environmental challenges such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and global warming, Pulliam pointed out. "It is likely new space-faring nations will make a similar argument if current mitigations efforts prove to be insufficient to forestall the deterioration of the low-Earth orbit environment and an international agreement on debris removal is required," Pulliam advised. There is a "therefore" to Pulliam's view: That is, if you are one that believes that debris has become a risk which will soon make operations difficult in low-Earth orbit, then a top-priority has to be in continued research into cost-effective methods to remove debris mass already in orbit. That's because this mass is what will cause the future growth in the debris population.   " There are many approaches that have been postulated for debris removal, but determining which are the most cost effective and demonstrating their utility is necessary to formulating a response to the overall problem with the lowest cost and risk," Pulliam said.

No programs funded to eliminate space debris now. Williams 10 (Dan, writer at Reuters, Red Ice Creations, Reuters.com. US general urges world war on space debris, 1/28/10; http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=9652; rn)

World powers must find ways to reduce the amount of debris in orbit, as the collision risk it poses to spacecraft is increasing, the head of the U.S. Strategic Command said on Wednesday. Air Force General Kevin Chilton, a former astronaut, told an Israeli audience that the United States has catalogued more than 15,000 items such as jettisoned rockets, shuttle detritus, and bits of destroyed satellites currently floating in space. "The estimation is that these numbers could grow upward of 50,000 in total numbers in the not-too-distant future," he said, adding that this could make low-earth orbit "uninhabitable to man or machine". The amount of debris has increased exponentially, according to Chilton, due to events like China's 2007 shooting down of a defunct satellite, and last year's collision of an old Russian military satellite and a telecoms satellite owned by Iridium. In what was widely seen as an effort to achieve parity with China, the United States in 2008 blew up a target satellite using the Aegis missile interceptor. The Aegis is now the backbone of a planned U.S. ballistic shield for Eastern Europe. Chilton said the increasing clutter raised the spectre of a "cascade" whereby debris causes collisions, which in turn creates more debris. Chilton said major powers should agree on a "responsible space operation", improve their spacecraft to keep debris to a minimum, and share data on possible risks. "The U.S. has quite an extensive array of sensors ... but even that is not enough," he said in his address to the Fisher Institute for Air & Space Strategic Studies, near Tel Aviv. "We need to improve our space surveillance capabilities." But Chilton made clear that, for now, containment was the only option, in the absence of a means of elimination. "Today, the way we eliminate space debris is we wait for it to come down" and burn up on reentry through the atmosphere, he said. Chilton, whose responsibilities include ballistic missile defence and cyber warfare as well as space operations, spent three days in Israel, an aide said. As well as visiting academic forums, he held talks with researchers at Israel's Defence Ministry, an official involved in the visit said, without giving details.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Inherency (4/6)

There have been no national or international policies regarding space debris. Ansdell in 10 (Master in international Science and Technology Policy at the University’s Elliott school of International Affairs with a focus on space policy, Princeton Journal of Public and International Affairs, Space Debris Removal, http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf, AX)

There is also a lack of clear policy on both national and international levels. Space-faring countries and the United Nations have only adopted mitigation guidelines and have not cited the development of active debris removal systems as part of their space policies. Moreover, there has been a lack of discussion about what entity is responsible for financing and operating these systems. This is a complicated issue as some nations have created more debris than others, yet all space-faring nations and users of satellites services would benefit from space debris clean up.

In the status quo, all space debris options have failed. Ansdell in 10 (Master in international Science and Technology Policy at the University’s Elliott school of International Affairs with a focus on space policy, Princeton Journal of Public and International Affairs, Space Debris Removal, http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf, AX)

There is currently no man-made space debris removal system in operation, nor have there been any serious attempts to develop one. However, common concepts include electrodynamic tethers, solar sails, drag augmentation devices, orbital transfer vehicles, and space-based lasers. All of these have their own benefits and drawbacks, making it difficult to find a single system that fulfills all of the above requirements. For example, twelve electrodynamic tethers weighing only one hundred kilograms each could be launched as secondary payloads to stabilize the space debris population in low-Earth’s orbit within five years (Foust 2009). However, tethers only work on objects greater than ten centimeters and attaching them to debris using conventional robotics would “incur excessive costs for the benefit gained” (Liou and Johnson 2006, 340-341). In contrast, a constellation of space-based lasers using photoablation to guide debris out of critical orbits could reach further than low-Earth’s orbit, but would only work on debris smaller than ten centimeters. Moreover, the required laser technology is currently unavailable and launching a satellite constellation costs up to billions of dollars, making the development and deployment of such a system extremely expensive.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Inherency (5/6)

NASA scientist wants to use lasers to move space junkBates March 2011 “DANIEL BATES journalist for dailymail.co.uk. “Nasa to shoot lasers at space junk around Earth to prevent collisions

with satellites” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1366838/Nasa-use-lasers-shoot-space-junk-Earth.html SH) Nasa fears ‘Kessler Syndrome’, where there is too much space junk for it to be safe to fly out, leaving us trapped on Earth Nasa is considering using lasers to deflect space junk around Earth and stop it colliding with satellites. Lasers similar to those used for welding in car factories would be fired through telescopes to ‘nudge’ piles of rubbish left in orbit. The gentle movement would stop them from taking out communications satellites or hitting the International Space Station. Now a team led by Nasa space scientist James Mason have claimed that gently moving junk off course could be the answer. The theory is that the photons in laser beams carry a tiny amount of momentum in them which, under the right circumstances, could nudge an object in space and slow it down by 0.04 inches per second. By firing a laser at a piece of junk for a few hours it should be possible to alter it’s course by 650ft per day.? Since the first object, Sputnik One, was launched into space 53 years ago, mankind has created a swarm of perhaps tens of millions of items of debris. The rubbish circling the planet comes from old rockets, abandoned satellites and missile shrapnel. It is estimated that there are 370,000 pieces of space junk floating in Earth's orbit. The picture above shows a ball of twisted metal, thought to be fallen space junk, on a farm in Queensland, Australia, in 2008. While that won’t be enough to knock it out of orbit, it could be sufficient to avoid a collision with a space station or satellite. The theory marks a change in approach from previous research which looked into using expensive military Star Wars-style lasers to destroy space junk. The new project uses equipment that is available for just $800,000 (£500,000) with the final bill coming to just tens of millions of dollars. Existing telescopes could even be modified, bringing the cost down further. Nudging would also be more accurate and it is thought the process could divert up to half of all space junk. Some 20,000 pieces of rubbish are currently being monitored in low-Earth orbit, the majority of which are discarded bits of spacecraft or debris from collisions. Serious accidents in recent years included the 2009 smash between the Iridium 33 satellite and the Kosmos 2251 satellite. The communications vessels collided at more than 3,000m per second - the first major smash between two operational satellites in Earth orbit. Nasa engineer Creon Levit said it was imperative that something was done about space junk. ‘There’s not a lot of argument that this is going to screw us if we don’t do something’ he told Wired. ‘Right now it’s at the tipping point … and it just keeps getting worse.’ The new paper was submitted to the journal Advances in Space Research.

SQUO monitoring not sufficient - Iridium accident proves that debris monitoring is insufficient for avoiding accidents. Wolf in 9 (News Reporter and Analyst, Reuters, Iridium says in dark before orbital crash, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSN1244243120090212?sp=true February 12,2009, AX)

"Iridium didn't have information prior to the collision to know that the collision would occur," said Liz DeCastro, a company spokeswoman. "If the organizations that monitor space had that information available, we are confident they would have shared it with us." She was responding to questions about an 18-month-old presentation by retired U.S. Air Force General John Campbell, Iridium's executive vice president for government programs. Iridium had been receiving a weekly average of 400 conjunction reports from the U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Space Operations Center that tracks debris in space, Campbell told a June 2007 forum hosted by the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington research group. "So the ability actually to do anything with all the information is pretty limited," he said, describing a kind of data overload. The conjunction reports were issued every time a potential threat object was to pass within five kilometers (3 miles) of a commercial satellite, he said. "Even if we had a report of an impending direct collision, the error would be such that we might maneuver into a collision as well as move away from one," he told the panel.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Inherency (6/6)

Space debris increasing now, turning the Kessler syndrome into reality. Clark 10 (Stuart Clark is a widely read astronomy journalist and holds a first class honours degree and a PhD in astrophysics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a former Vice Chair of the Association of British Science Writers. He writes for the Space Agency as senior editor for space science. In addition, he writes articles and news for New Scientist, The Times, BBC Focus and BBC Sky at Night and is a former editor of Astronomy Now magazine. Stuart was the Director of Public Astronomy Education at the University of Hertfordshire., New Scientist, Who you gonna call? Junk busters! 9/11/2010; http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=14&sid=7ac5f409-0ed2-4624-9745d27b1812ca59%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=58665244, rn)

On 10 February 2009 it started to happen. In the first collision between two intact satellites, the defunct Russian craft Kosmos-2251 struck communications satellite Iridium 33 at a speed of 42,100 kilometres per hour. The impact shattered one of Iridium 33's solar panels and sent the satellite into a helpless tumble. Kosmos-2251 was utterly destroyed. The two orbits are now home to clouds of debris that, according to the US military's Space Surveillance Network (SSN), contain more than 2000 fragments larger than 10 centimetres. The collision may also have produced hundreds of thousands of smaller fragments, which cannot currently be tracked from Earth. Such debris is a serious worry. With satellites travelling at tens of thousands of kilometres per hour, any encounter with debris could be lethal. "Being hit by a 1-centimetre object at orbital velocity is the equivalent of exploding a hand grenade next to a satellite," says Heiner Klinkrad, head of the space debris office at the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, Germany. "Iridium and Kosmos was an early indication of the Kessler syndrome." Space junk isn't just made up of dead satellites. It also includes spent upper-stage rockets, used to loft the satellites into orbit, and items that have escaped the grasp of butterfingered astronauts, such as the glove Ed White dropped in 1965 as he became the first American to walk in space, and the tool kit that slipped from Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper's hand during a 2008 space walk. Protective covers and the explosive bolts used to separate them from uncrewed spacecraft have also been left to float away, along with a few lens caps for good measure. Some of these objects re-enter the atmosphere and burn up, but most are still up there. The SSN has catalogued 12,000 objects in Earth orbit that are at least 10 centimetres in size, about three-quarters of which are space junk. For objects bigger than 1 centimetre, the estimates are frightening: there are anything from hundreds of thousands to millions of them, mostly in unknown orbits and each capable of smashing a satellite to smithereens. Every rocket launch creates yet more space debris, edging us ever closer to the Kessler syndrome becoming a reality.

Space Debris increasing, alarming NASA.Dunbar 10 (Brian Dunbar, NASA official, NASA, Space Debris and Human Spacecraft, October 23,2010, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html#backtoTop, rn)

Space Debris and Human Spacecraft More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or “space junk,” are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft. The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles, but especially to the International Space Station, space shuttles and other spacecraft with humans aboard. NASA takes the threat of collisions with space debris seriously and has a long-standing set of guidelines on how to deal with each potential collision threat. These guidelines, part of a larger body of decision-making aids known as flight rules, specify when the expected proximity of a piece of debris increases the probability of a collision enough that evasive action or other precautions to ensure the safety of the crew are needed

The current tracking system fails to even track debris around the ISS. Alsup in 11 (News reporter at cnn, CNN, Nasa: debris is closest ever to space station, 6/29/11, http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/29/nasa.space.debris/, AX)

Russia's Interfax news agency said preliminary data on "the dangerous approach" shows that the "trash" came within about 250 meters (820 feet) of the station. Officials at NASA are investigating what the debris was, NASA spokesman Joshua Buck said. By the time it was spotted, it was "too late to make an avoidance maneuver," so NASA ordered the six crew members to "shelter in place," Buck said. About 7:30 a.m. ET, the crew members climbed into the two Soyuz capsules positioned at the station. NASA determined that the debris would come closest to the station at 8:08 a.m. ET. Three minutes later, at 8:11 a.m. ET, the all-clear was sounded and astronauts were allowed to exit the capsules, Buck said. Buck described the debris as an "unknown object of unknown size."

8

Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Brink: Collisions (1/2)

The aff’s on the brink – any increase in fragmentation makes space impassable.Wilder 10 (Benjamin, Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy, B.S., University of South Alabama, Naval Postgraduate School, Thesis for a Master of Science in Physics at the Naval Postgraduate School, Power Beaming, Orbital Debris Removal, And Other Space Applications Of A Ground Based Free Electron Laser, March 2010, http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada518696.pdf, SP)

Considering the alarming rate of orbital debris generation, the era of mankind’s open and relatively simple access to space may be coming to an end. Any increase of fragmentation events, such as through a future war with anti-satellite engagements or simply from the continued collisions in crowded orbits, has the potential to render those orbits virtually useless for generations to come. If the Chinese ASAT engagement above generated ~3,000 pieces of debris, an anti-satellite war that destroys only 10 satellites could immediately double the current debris population, and this large debris field would spread over time to other orbits ”near” the parent satellite. Currently, there are no programs for the removal of space debris from orbit, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has only recently enacted guidelines to limit the creation of orbital debris. Likewise, the space debris problem will not “solve itself” in the near future. The anticipated orbital lifetime of debris in the 8001100 km range is on the order of 10,000 years [52, p. 576]. The space tug concept discussed in Chapter V may be one method to reduce the amount of large debris, such as rocket bodies and non-functional spacecraft, by hauling these items into lower disposal orbits that experience higher atmospheric drag. Similarly, by reducing the larger parent objects, much of the future fragmentation debris growth could be avoided. For smaller debris, the most-promising, near-term method of debris removal is through the illumination of debris clouds with a high energy laser to lower the perigee of their orbits as proposed by Project Orion.

Space debris collisions likely - empirically proven. Ingham 6/28 (Richard Ingham is AFP's international coordinator of science, health and environment coverage. His special interests are climate change, AIDS, space exploration, genetics and bird flu. He spent 10 years as a reporter in Brussels and Berlin and as regional news editor in Asia. In a 25-year career, he has filed from places ranging from East Timor, Goose Bay and Lhasa to French Guiana, Ouagadougou and the slums of Nairobi, physorg.com, Space Debris a Growing Problem, http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-space-debris-problem.html, 6/28/11, rn)

In May 2009, a 10-cm (four-inch) chunk from Fengyun-1C passed within three kilometres (1.8 miles) of the US space shuttle Atlantis, prompting plans for evasive manoeuvres that proved to be unneeded. Four known collisions have occurred between tracked objects, France's National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) says. In 1991, a Russian navigation satellite, Cosmos 1991, collided with debris from a defunct Russian satellite, Cosmos 926, although this event only came to light in 2005. In 1996, a fragment from an exploded Ariane rocket launched in 1986 damaged a French spy micro-satellite, Cerise. In 2005, the upper stage of a US Thor launcher hit debris from a Chinese CZ-4 rocket. And in 2009, a disused Russian military satellite, Cosmos 2251, smacked into a US Iridium communications satellite, generating a debris cloud in its own right. In low Earth orbit, which is where the ISS is deployed, debris impacts at around 10 kilometres (six miles) per second (36,000 kph / 22,400 mph), says the CNES. An aluminium pellet just one millimetre (0.04 of an inch) carries roughly the same kinetic energy as a cricket ball or baseball fired at 450 kph (280 mph). In June 1983, the windscreen of the shuttle Challenger had to be replaced after it was chipped by a paint fleck just 0.3 mm (0.01 of an inch) across that impacted at four kms (2.5 miles) per second. To cope with such threats, the ISS has some shielding but depends mainly on manoeuvering to get out of the way, an operation it has done several times. Satellites, too, can take evasive action using onboard thrusters, but this is costly because it reduces the craft's operational life. The ISS "is the most heavily shielded spacecraft ever flown," NASA says. "Critical components, e.g. habitable compartments and high pressure tanks, will normally be able to withstand the impact of debris as large as one centimetre (half an inch) in diameter."

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Brink: Collisions (2/3)

Space debris impacting missions now. Bergin 11 (Chris, editor of NASA spaceflight.com, NASA, Project ADR: Removal of large orbital debris interests NASA – Study, 1/9/11, http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/01/project-adr-removal-large-orbital-debris-nasa-study/,rn)

Small pieces of debris, such as MMOD (Micrometeoroid Orbital Debris) also impact the Station and the Space Shuttle orbiters, with small impacts regularly seen on the orbiter’s flight deck windows late in missions, whilst a few impacts have been found on the orbiter’s radiators once they return to their Orbiter Processing Facilities (OPF) for post flight processing. Endeavour after STS-118, and Atlantis after STS-115, provide such   examples, with bullet-like holes was found on their radiators. Forensic examinations on Atlantis’ damage found a small piece of circuit board – originating from an “exploded Upper Stage” – in what was classed as the second largest orbital debris strike on an orbiter in the history of the program. Thankfully, the MMOD just missed one of Atlantis’ Freon-22 coolant loops, unlike Columbia’s STS-109, when a small piece of debris was lodged stuck in her coolant loop 2 and restricted the flow of Freon-22 in that loop. The amount of Freon-22 in the coolant loop was slightly below the flight rule red-limit, but after exhaustive analysis by the engineers on the ground, they decided to press on with the mission

Threats of collisions and lack of satellite spots increase without the removal of space debris. Bergin 11 (Chris, editor of NASA spaceflight.com, NASA, Project ADR: Removal of large orbital debris interests NASA – Study, 1/9/11, http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/01/project-adr-removal-large-orbital-debris-nasa-study/,rn)

“Collision fragments replace other decaying debris through the next 50 years, keeping the total population approximately constant. Beyond 2055, the rate of decaying debris decreases, leading to a net increase in the overall satellite population due to collisions,” the presentation noted. “Major breakups may continue to occur (e.g., Fengyun-1C ASAT test, Briz-M explosion). Postmission disposal (such as the 25-year decay rule) will help, but will be insufficient to prevent the debris self-generating phenomenon from happening.” The threat of orbital debris – especially from a collision fragment standpoint – has been known for some time, such as via the 2005 “Assessment of the Current LEO Environment” study, which was cited in the ADR presentation. “A major study (using NASA’s LEGEND model) on the debris environment was conducted in 2005. The current debris population in the LEO region has reached the point where the environment is unstable and collisions will become the most dominant debris-generating mechanism in the future. “Only remediation of the near-Earth environment the removal of existing large objects from orbit can prevent future problems for research in and commercialization of space.” The mass of debris in orbit was also recently updated in October, 2010, which estimated that as much as 5,900 tons of debris exists, with 2,500 tons residing in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

10

Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Brink: Collisions (3/3)

Space debris makes future satellite missions more risky and expensive. Marks 09 (Paul Marks, writer and Chief Technology Correspondent at New Scientist, New Scientist, Rocketing volumes of space debris are going to add significantly to the complexity of future space flights, 10/31/09, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=1c987d21-e57f-4d72-b30c-87bd1d4170f4%40sessionmgr15&vid=8&hid=18&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=45391967, rn)

A BURGEONING blizzard of space debris is going to have a major impact on the future economics of space flight. That was the prediction made this week by Hugh Lewis of the University of Southampton, UK, at the European Air and Space Conference in Manchester. His projections indicate that the number of close encounters between objects in orbit will rise 50 per cent in the next decade, and quadruple by 2059. Countermeasures will add greatly to the cost of future missions. Ever since the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 in 1957, satellite operators have used Earth orbit as a junkyard, dumping spent rocket stages and dead spacecraft there. As the danger of collisions with active spacecraft began to expose the cost of this folly, space agencies have tried not to add to the junk pile, but events have conspired against them. In 2007, the Chinese army used a missile to destroy a defunct weather satellite, and earlier this year an Iridium communications satellite collided with a derelict Russian vehicle. Both events added many thousands of debris shards to near-Earth space. The number of pieces of space debris has risen by 40 per cent in the past four years alone. The US air force Space Command now tracks 19,000 orbiting objects that are 10 centimetres or more across - including around 800 working satellites - and estimates that there are 500,000 smaller fragments in orbit. Lewis wondered what effect this growing debris field would have on managing future satellite operations. How much more often will mission controllers have to track debris and consider taking evasive action? To find out, he used data from an industry database called Socrates to correlate the change over time in the quantity of debris with the number of occasions on which objects come within 5 kilometres of each other. Then, using the predicted growth in the debris population over the next 50 years, he estimated the number of close approaches that are set to occur. Compared with the 13,000 close approaches per week now, his projection showed that there will be 20,000 a week in 2019 and upwards of 50,000 a week in 2059. From this he predicts that satellite operators will have to make five times as many collision avoidance manoeuvres in 2059 as they will in 2019. "There's going to be a big impact," says Lewis. "You're going to need more tracking to remove uncertainty about close approaches and undertake more manoeuvres.".

11

Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Brink: Kessler Syndrome (1/2)

Only way to prevent Kessler syndrome is through removing debris now- stalling would increases risks to active satellites. Kessler 09 (Donald J. Kessler, Donald J. Kessler is an American astrophysicist and former NASA scientist known for his studies regarding space debris. Kessler worked at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, as part of NASA's Environmental Effects Project Office. Kessler first published his ideas in 1978, in an academic paper titled "Collision Frequency of Artificial Satellites: The Creation of a Debris Belt."[2] The paper established Kessler's reputation, and NASA subsequently made him the head of the newly-created Orbital Debris Program Office to study the issue and issue guidelines to slow the accumulation of space debris.[1] , The Kessler Syndrome, March 8, 2009 http://webpages.charter.net/dkessler/files/KesSym.html, rn)

We are entering a new era of debris control….an era that will be dominated by a slowly increasing number of random catastrophic collisions.   These collisions will continue in the 800 km to 1000 km altitude regions, but will eventually spread to other regions.   The control of future debris requires , at a minimum, that we not leave future payloads and rocket bodies in orbit after their useful life and might require that we plan launches to return some objects already in orbit. These control measures will significantly increase the cost of debris control measures; but if we do not do them, we will increase the cost of future space activities even more.  We might be tempted to put increasing amounts of shielding on all spacecraft to protect them and increase their life, or we might just accept shorter lifetimes for all spacecraft.   However, neither option is acceptable:   More shielding not only increases cost, but it also increases both the frequency of catastrophic collisions and the amount of debris generated when such a collision occurs.   Accepting a shorter lifetime also increases cost, because it means that satellites must be replaced more often….with the failed satellites again increasing the catastrophic collision rate and producing larger amounts of debris. Aggressive space activities without adequate safeguards could significantly shorten the time between collisions and produce an intolerable hazard to future spacecraft.   Some of the most environmentally dangerous activities in space include large constellations such as those initially proposed by the Strategic Defense Initiative in the mid-1980s, large structures such as those considered in the late-1970s for building solar power stations in Earth orbit, and anti-satellite warfare using systems tested by the USSR, the U.S., and China over the past 30 years.   Such aggressive activities could set up a situation where a single satellite failure could lead to cascading failures of many satellites in a period of time much shorter than years. As is true for many environmental problems, the control of the orbital debris environment may initially be expensive, but failure to control leads to disaster in the long-term. Catastrophic collisions between catalogued objects in low Earth orbit are now an important environmental issue that will dominate the debris hazard to future spacecraft.

Kessler Syndrome on the brink-debris removal needed now. David 10 (Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999., Space.com, Space Junk Mess Getting Messier in Orbit, http://www.space.com/7956-space-junk-mess-messier-orbit.html, 2/23/10, rn)

The Kessler Syndrome The idea of debris creating debris was put in motion by Donald Kessler, along with fellow NASA researcher, Burton Cour-Palais, back in 1978. Their research suggested that, as the number of artificial satellites in Earth orbit increases, the probability of collisions between satellites also increases. Satellite collisions would produce orbiting fragments, each of which would increase the probability of further collisions, leading to the growth of a belt of debris around the Earth. Now, decades later, that prophecy has been dubbed the Kessler Syndrome. Kessler told SPACE.com that the disorder fits into much more complex natural laws that include the evolution of the solar system, as well as meteoroids, meteorites, and climate-changing asteroids. Kessler is now an orbital debris and meteoroid consultant in Asheville, North Carolina. "There is nothing complex about what is called the ?Kessler Syndrome' . . . it is just the way nature may have converted a disorderly group of orbiting rocks into an orderly solar system . . . although nature reminds us with a large asteroid or comet collision every few million years that it isn't quite finished yet. ? "In the case of orbital debris, this collision process is just starting," Kessler explained.? Consequently, nobody should be surprised that as orbital debris models became more complex — and as more data is obtained — the same conclusion holds, Kessler said. "The future debris environment will be dominated by fragments resulting from random collisions between objects in orbit, and that environment will continue to increase, even if we do not launch any new objects into orbit," Kessler concluded.

12

Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Brink: Kessler Syndrome (2/2)

Kessler prediction fulfilled so far; soon, debris will be insurmountableKessler 09 (Donald J., Former head of the Orbital Debris Program Office, The Kessler Syndrome; As discussed by Donald J. Kessler, 3/8/09, http://webpages.charter.net/dkessler/files/KesSym.html, M.S.)

The lower growth rate of 320 objects per year in the 1978 paper predicted two collisions by 2009, both catastrophic.   Although the actual number of collisions is too few to be statistically meaningful, they may indicate that the actual collision rate could be higher than predicted, but fewer are catastrophic.  This higher collision rate would be consistent with the uncertainty in spacecraft area subject to collisions, as was noted in

1978.       In   1991  and   2000  publications, the collision area was shown to be about 2.5 times greater than adopted in 1978.   The 2000 publication also concluded that not all cataloged fragments were massive enough to cause a catastrophic collision…this would be especially true if the colliding fragment hit an antenna, stabilizer boom, or solar panel, or if the target were the empty tank of an upper stage. The presences of antennae, solar wings, and stabilizer booms were ignored in 1978, and obviously hitting one of these areas will only transfer a fraction of the impact energy to the entire spacecraft structure, reducing the likelihood of a catastrophic breakup.  Also an impact into the empty fuel tank of an upper rocket stage may not transfer all the impact energy to the rocket body structure….again not causing a catastrophic breakup.  We may have been lucky that only one of the four collisions since 1991 was catastrophic…or it may be that only one out of four of the collisions between catalogued objects will be catastrophic.  The 1978 prediction of collision frequency becomes more consistent with the actual collision frequency by simply assuming that the area used in 1978 is the average catastrophic collision area, which was the intent of the paper.  However, a more accurate understanding of both the non-catastrophic and catastrophic collision frequency is achieved by using data generated since 1978 in more accurate models currently used by the Orbital Debris Program Office. Despite the absence of random catastrophic collisions, the predicted fluxes of smaller debris in 1990 and beyond in the JGR paper are not too different from what has been measured as a result of the orbital debris program.  Accidental explosions and a few intentional collisions almost certainly (continued) contributed to the similarity…. and

possibly some non-catastrophic collisions involving an un-catalogued object also contributed.  However, the major contributors were a number of small debris sources that were discovered since 1978.     Even though these sources have produced a debris environment in the past that is about the same as predicted from collisions,   past debris sources are fundamentally different from future random collisions between catalogued objects.       The past sources produce debris at a rate that   is proportional to the number of objects in orbit, while the future frequency of collisions will produce debris at a rate that   is proportional to the   square   of the number of objects in orbit.     For example, if one were to double the number of upper stages and payloads in orbit, each having a probability that they would explode, then the rate that debris is generated by explosions would also double.     However the rate that debris is generated by collisions between these objects would increase by a factor of four . The 1978 prediction of a catastrophic collision between catalogued objects of 0.013 per year was based on a catalogue containing 3866 objects; today, the

catalogue contains about 13,000 objects, or more than 3 times as many objects.  This gives a collision rate that is more than 10 times what it was just over 30 years ago, or 0.13 per year….which is the same as one catastrophic collision between cataloged objects every 8 years….with the time between collisions rapidly becoming shorter as the catalog continues to grow.     The larger fragments from either explosions or collisions will further accelerate the rate of collisions. Most of the collisions in the 1978 paper were predicted to take place between 800 km and 1000 km altitude.     That is even truer today.     Not only is this region rapidly growing, certain altitudes contain a high concentrations of satellites, and the inclinations of their orbits are near polar, both conditions increasing the probability that they will collide, and do so with collision velocities that average more than 10 km/sec. We are entering a new era of debris control….an era that will be dominated by a slowly increasing number of random catastrophic collisions.       These collisions will continue in the 800 km to 1000 km altitude regions, but will eventually spread to other regions.     The control of future debris requires, at a minimum, that we not leave future payloads and rocket bodies in orbit after their useful life and might require that we plan launches to return some objects already in orbit.

13

Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Brink: A lot of Debris (1/6)

Human made space debris is growing rapidly, more dangerous than natural meteoroids, and is key to future space development. (Could be used as a potential effects topicality argument)Crowther 2 (Richard, QinetiQ Space, Cody Technology Park, Farnborough GU14 0LX, UK, The Royal Society, Orbital debris: a growing threat to space operations, November 20 2002, http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/361/1802/157.full.pdf+html, SP)

The Earth encounters a flux of natural debris as it sweeps through interplanetary space. This sporadic flux of meteoroids totals more than 200 kg of dust within 2000 km of the Earth’s surface, travelling in excess of 20 km s and is relatively evenly distributed in position and velocity (NSTC 1995). This population is periodically augmented by stream meteoroids, when the Earth passes through the remnants of comets such as Tempel{Tuttle, to produce short-lived but signi cantly enhanced and directional ®uxes such as the Leonids (Beech et al. 1997). Historically, this was the background particulate environment against which arti cial satellites were designed. Towards the end of the third decade of the space age, it became apparent that another population of debris was having an impact on arti cial satellites but, unlike the naturally occurring meteoroids, it was man-made in origin. This orbital debris population was growing rapidly, dominating the meteoroid environment in all but the micrometre size range. This new particulate environment, posing a signi cantly increased collision hazard to the arti cial satellites, was found to be the direct consequence of launching and operating similar systems during the preceding 30 years. As we become more dependent upon space-based systems for remote sensing, communications and navigation, it is important that we understand the nature of the threat that orbital debris pose to operational satellites and take appropriate steps to ensure the sustainable development of near-Earth space.

This brink evidence is on fire –the debris produced by the recent Chinese ASAT tests threatens to ruin all past long term efforts made to reduce debris. Also, current treaties and international conventions fail – no enforcement and no coverage.Senechal 10 (Thierry, Policy Manager with the International Chamber of Commerce, Papers on International Environmental Treaty-Making, Space Debris Pollution: A Convention Proposal, 2010, http://www.pon.org/downloads/ien16.2.Senechal.pdf, SP)

On 11 January 2007 a Chinese ground-based missile was used to destroy the Fengyun-1C spacecraft, an aging satellite orbiting more than 500 miles in space since May 1999. Although the test was hugely successful from a military point of view, demonstrating China‘s ability to use very sophisticated weapons to target regions of space that are home to various satellites and space-based systems, it caused great concerns to both the military and scientific communities. Indeed, the event is a real danger in the sense it may fuel an arms race and weaponization of space, with some countries being tempted to show they can easily control space as well. From the scientific perspective, the Chinese destruction of Fengyun-1C gave a new dimension to the space debris issue. In shattering the old weather-watching satellite into hundreds of large fragments, the Chinese created a large ―debris cloud. The debris are now spreading all around the earth, the majority of them residing in very long-lived orbits. The debris cloud extends from less than 125 miles (200 kilometers) to more than 2,292 miles (3,850 kilometers), encompassing all of low Earth orbit. As of 27 February 2007, the U.S. military‘s Space Surveillance Network had tracked and cataloged 900 debris fragments greater than 5 centimeters in size, large enough to create potentially serious collision problems. The total count of objects could go even higher based upon the mass of Fengyun-1C and the conditions of the breakup, which could have created millions of smaller pieces. The Chinese test has demonstrated that the actual system for preventing the creation of space debris is still weak—with a single test threatening to put in shamble the long-term efforts made by other countries. In particular, questions are now raised as to the extent to which the existing organizations working on space debris could take measures to protect the orbital space from pollution. The test also shows that the various existing treaties and conventions regulating outer space activities do not play a significant role in preventing such an incident because they lack coverage on such issues or are impossible to enforce.

14

Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Brink: A lot of Debris (2/6)

Now is key – Experts say the amount of space junk will triple by 2030David in 11 (Leonard, Space.com space insider columnist, Space.com Spaceflight, Ugly truth of space junk: Orbital debris problem to triple

by 2030, May 09, 2011, http://www.space.com/11607-space-junk-rising-orbital-debris-levels-2030.html, NU)In a recent conference here, Gen. William Shelton, commander of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, relayed his worries about rising amounts of human-made space junk. "The traffic is increasing. We've now got over 50 nations that are participants in the space environment," Shelton said last month during the Space Foundation’s 27th National Space Symposium. Given existing space situational awareness capabilities, over 20,000 objects are now tracked. [Worst Space Debris Events of All Time] "We catalog those routinely and keep track of them. That number is projected to triple by 2030, and much of that is improved sensors, but some of that is increased traffic," Shelton said. "Then if you think about it, there are probably 10 times more objects in space than we're able to track with our sensor capability today. Those objects are untrackable … yet they are lethal to our space systems -- to military space systems, civil space systems, commercial -- no one’s immune from the threats that are on orbit today, just due to the traffic in space."

Space debris will increase in coming years – Makes now the critical time to act. Wall 11 (Mike Wall, senior writer at space.com and Former herpetologist , Space.com, Space Junk Threat Will Grow for Astronauts and Satellites, http://www.space.com/11305-space-junk-astronauts-bigger-threat.html ,rn)

Fast-moving chunks of space debris zipped uncomfortably close to the International Space Station twice in the past week — cosmic close calls that will likely become more common over the next several years, experts predict. For one thing, after 50 years of spaceflight there is just more junk up there than there used to be, sharing space with vehicles and their human crews. And this debris can snowball — as when satellites collide, spawning thousands of new pieces of orbiting junk. The sun is also entering an active period, which puffs up Earth's atmosphere and increases orbital drag — causing higher-altitude space debris to rain down on spacecraft below. Solar activity shouldn't hit its peak until 2012 or 2013, so orbiting astronauts may experience some more close shaves soon. "I think that over the next two or three years, this is going to happen more often," NASA's Gene Stansbery told SPACE.com. Stansbery is the program manager of NASA's Orbital Debris Office at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Amount of space debris increasing now-making the lower earth orbit potentially uninhabitable. David 11(Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year’s National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for Space.com since 1999., space.com, Ugly truth of space junk: No feasible solutions Debris continues to multiply, but there's no affordable way to eliminate it , 5/10/11, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42975224/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/ugly-truth-space-junk-no-feasible-solutions/, rn)

Point of no return The concern over orbital debris has been building for several reasons, said Marshall Kaplan, an orbital debris expert within the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. In Kaplan's view, spacefaring nations have passed the point of "no return," with the accumulation of debris objects in low-Earth orbits steadily building over the past 50 years. Add to the clutter, the leftovers of China’s anti-satellite (ASAT) test in 2007. "The fact that this single event increased the number of debris objects by roughly 25 percent was not as important as the location of the intercept. The event took place at an altitude of 865 kilometers, right in the middle of the most congested region of low-orbiting satellites," Kaplan pointed out. Toss into the brew the collision of an Iridium satellite with an expired Russian Cosmos spacecraft in February 2009 — at an altitude similar to that of China’s ASAT test. As a result of 50 years of launching satellites and these two events, the altitude band from about 435 miles to a little over 800 miles has accumulated possibly millions of debris objects ranging from a few millimeters to a few meters, Kaplan said.

15

Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Brink: A lot of Debris (3/6)

Space debris increasing now, solely abiding by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee regulations of it won’t solve. Clark 10 (Stuart Clark is an astronomy journalist and holds a first class honours degree and a PhD in astrophysics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a former Vice Chair of the Association of British Science Writers. He writes for the Space Agency as senior editor for space science. In addition, he writes articles and news for New Scientist, The Times, BBC Focus and BBC Sky at Night and is a former editor of Astronomy Now magazine. Stuart was the Director of Public Astronomy Education at the University of Hertfordshire., New Scientist, Who you gonna call? Junk busters! 9/11/2010; http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=14&sid=7ac5f409-0ed2-4624-9745d27b1812ca59%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=58665244, rn)

So what can be done? For a start, we can try not to make the problem worse. This can be as simple as ensuring that protective covers are tethered to spacecraft rather than jettisoned. It also includes sticking to international guidelines intended to minimise new debris, drawn up by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), which represents all the world's major space agencies. These require, for example, that spacecraft in low Earth orbit must be made to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up within 25 years of finishing their missions. Communications satellites in the high-altitude geostationary orbit cannot be brought down practically. Instead, the guidelines say operators should use the last of their satellites' fuel to boost them into a "graveyard orbit" 300 kilometres higher up (see diagram, page 49). Yet even with these guidelines in place, Klinkrad says, "It is pretty common to leave your spacecraft stranded." Twelve satellites in geosynchronous orbit failed in 2008, but only seven were boosted in accordance with the guidelines. And more than 800 of the 1200 trackable objects near the geostationary corridor are not active satellites. The most recent drama there involved the communications satellite Galaxy 15, which became widely known as the "zombie satellite" (see "March of the zombie", page 48). Even if the guidelines were followed to the letter, the number of debris fragments would still go up. "We could even stop launching and the amount of debris would still rise," says Hugh Lewis of the University of Southampton in the UK. That's because accidental collisions would still happen. Kessler predicted that if nothing were done to remove debris, we would begin to suffer the consequences in 2000. As it turned out, the Iridium and Kosmos collision did not happen for another nine years. The main reason for our period of grace may be that modern satellites are manoeuvrable. When a piece of space debris is seen approaching, satellite operators can move their "bird" out of the way. Such ducking and dodging used to be rare.Not any longer. A few years ago, operators were receiving one or two warnings of space debris a month; now it can be two or three times a week. Every time a new warning comes in, they must begin a 72-hour tracking campaign using ground-based radar to refine the orbit of the object and establish whether to take evasive action or not. As if accidents weren't bad enough, in 2007 China launched a missile that destroyed their Feng Yun 1C weather satellite. It was an ostentatious display of military capability, perhaps intended as a warning to anyone thinking of putting weapons into space, but it also sent shock waves through space operations centres around the world. That incident, in combination with the Iridium smash in 2009, created so much debris that the number of fragments in low Earth orbit large enough to be tracked from the ground almost doubled.

16

Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Brink: A lot of Debris (4/6)

We must act now to avoid further dipping into the Kessler effect: the point of no return takes place around 2055.The Times in 10 (legit newspaper, Junk in space; Our world is surrounded by debris - and doing nothing is not an option, June 3 2010, http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/. DT)

Even after the shielding upgrade the risks seem unnervingly high, with a catastrophic risk of 5 per cent and a penetration risk of 29 per cent - 5 per cent short of Nasa's requirements. It was not surprising, then, that when the Columbia space shuttle disintegrated during re-entry in February 2003, one of the first causes considered was an orbital debris strike. "That tells you that they think of this as a fairly significant risk," Lewis says. But Johnson plays down these risks, arguing that the ISS is in a relatively low orbit, where there is less debris. Because of this, collision avoidance maneuvers are only   necessary roughly once a year . Even so, Johnson admits that small debris does pose a threat. "The ISS has the greatest amount of shielding of any spacecraft deployed. But it can only shield against objects up to about 1cm." So since only objects bigger than 10cm can be tracked - or at best 5cm at very low orbits - this leaves an alarming gap. In light of this, Nasa is trying to improve its tracking capabilities, says Johnson. But this is small comfort to everyone else, as not every spacecraft carries a lot of armour. For the vast majority of satellites and spacecraft, even debris smaller than 1cm poses a risk. Without active debris removal, these risks are set to increase steadily over time. And despite the 25-year removal guidelines, it is inevitable that new debris will end up in orbit. "Not all spacecraft will be removed because they may suffer a failure," says Lewis. For example, geostationary satellites suffer only a 2 per cent failure rate. "Not all operators will follow the guidelines. It's not legally enforceable," says Lewis. How you define the point at which Earth's orbit will become unusable very much depends on your perception of what risks are acceptable. From Nasa's perspective, there is still plenty of time. "We're talking about hundreds of years of doing nothing before it gets to be a serious issue," says Johnson. But Nasa's idea of "safe" is unlikely to tally with that of the average space tourist. What's more, even if it does take 200 years to get to this stage, a tipping point will arrive long before that. A round 2055 we will start to see a shift in the main cause of debris. Exploding obsolete satellites will cease to be the main source of junk and collision debris will take over. "That's the critical point in our future," says Lewis. "In fact some people say we have already passed another critical point." This is the well-known space industry phenomenon called the Kessler syndrome. Ignoring the creation of new debris through collisions, this is the scenario in which the rate of objects being sent into orbit exceeds the rate at which they are being removed by atmospheric decay. In simple terms, it is the point at which we are putting more junk into space than we are taking out. Based on such a rudimentary definition, we are already in the Kessler syndrome.

Space is running out of space. Objects surrounding earth are getting dangerously close to each other.Cardoni 6/28 (Salvatore Senior Writer for Take Part, Take Part, What Goes Up Should Come Down: 5 Ways to Clean Up Space Junk, 6/28/11, http://www.takepart.com/news/2011/06/28/what-goes-up-should-come-down-5-ways-to-clean-up-space-junk, MS)

Two hundred and fifty meters. That’s how close six astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) came today to experiencing a real-life Michael Bay movie. The crew was forced to clamber to their lifeboat just 18 minutes before a piece of space debris narrowly missed colliding with the ISS, reports AFP. “We didn't find out about it in time to perform a debris avoidance maneuver, so we had the crew shelter in place in their Soyuz vehicles," U.S. space agency spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz told AFP. The incident isn’t the first time there’s been an out-of-this-world close call. Three crewmembers were forced to momentarily evacuate the space station during a March 2009 incident. Only 10 percent of all objects orbiting Earth are satellites. The rest? Trash—5,500 tons of it to be exact. The amount of space litter is set to increase by 5 percent per year. This will only add to the 19,000 “derelict” objects larger than 10 centimeters—spacecraft, rocket stages, and upper-stage rockets and their parts—currently circling our planet, reports NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office, the U.S. agency that monitors space trash. Space, it turns out, is running out of space. "Everything is spaced out just some 100 meters from each other. One satellite gets in the way of the next. It's way too crowded," said space journalist Vladimir Gubarev to Reuters.

17

Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Brink: A lot of Debris (5/6)

The space debris problem is becoming more and more dire, action must be taken. Phipps and Sinko 10 (PhD at Stanford University in plasma physics, Photonic Associates, ORION update, 10, http://photonicassociates.com/ORION_Update.pdf, AX)

The debris problem has become more urgent recently. In February 2009, an American communications satellite collided with a Russian Kosmos satellite, spreading debris around the Earth and prompting concerns about the safety of the finalHubble service mission. In March, 2009, the International Space Station crew spent the morning taking cover in a Soyuz capsule to reduce their cross-section in the event of collision with a space debris object whose track might have intercepted the Space Station. Mutual collisions will continue to increase the debris density until the problem is dealt with

Large amounts of space debris now. Ingham 6/28 (Richard Ingham is AFP's international coordinator of science, health and environment coverage. His special interests are climate change, AIDS, space exploration, genetics and bird flu. He spent 10 years as a reporter in Brussels and Berlin and as regional news editor in Asia. In a 25-year career, he has filed from places ranging from East Timor, Goose Bay and Lhasa to French Guiana, Ouagadougou and the slums of Nairobi, physorg.com, Space Debris a Growing Problem, http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-space-debris-problem.html, 6/28/11, rn)

Millions of chunks of metal, plastic and glass are whirling round Earth, the garbage left from 4,600 launches in 54 years of space exploration. The collision risk is low, but the junk travels at such high speed that even a tiny shard can cripple a satellite costing tens of millions of dollars. Around 16,000 objects bigger than 10 centimetres (four inches) across are tracked by the US Space Surveillance Network, according to NASA's specialist newsletter. There are around 500,000 pieces between one and 10 cms (half and four inches), while the total of particles smaller than one centimetre (half an inch) "probably exceeds tens of millions," NASA says elsewhere on its website. The rubbish comes mainly from old satellites and upper stages of rockets whose residual fuel or other fluids explode while they turn in orbit. As the junk bumps and grinds, more debris results. Another big source, though, is a Chinese weather satellite, Fengyun-1C, which China destroyed in a test of an anti-satellite weapon in 2007. Debris specialists and satellite operators were incensed. At a stroke, it helped increase the tally of large debris by more than a third.

Space debris is continuing to increase with increased space missions.Young 2007 (Kelly, Writer at New Scientist, Space, Anti-Satellite test generates dangerous space debris, January 2007,

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10999;, NG)Millions of new pieces of space junk may have been generated during a Chinese test of an anti-satellite weapon last week, US officials worry. The debris could be dangerous for existing satellites - and even for astronauts aboard the International Space Station and the space shuttle - for years to come. On 11 January, China launched a missile from or near the Xichang Space Centre in the southwestern province of Sichuan. This likely released a projectile that slammed into one of its derelict polar-orbiting weather satellites, known as Feng Yun 1C, which flew at an altitude of about 800 kilometres. The collision created about 40,000 pieces of debris larger than 1 centimetre, estimates David Wright, co-director of the global security programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. That will nearly double the amount of debris of that size at similar altitudes, he told New Scientist. It may also have created 2 million fragments wider than 1 millimetre across. Such altitudes are heavily trafficked by imaging, meteorological, surveillance, remote-sensing and communications satellites. These spacecraft could be seriously damaged if they were hit by the debris, which can travel at 7.5 kilometres per second - 30 times faster than a jet aircraft. "Small things can cause very big problems," US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in comments about the Chinese test.

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Brink: A lot of Debris (6/6)

Now is key: the exponential escalation rate of debris means we need to deal with it now.Schwartz in 10. (Qualifications, Wired.com, The Looming Space Junk Crisis: It’s Time to Take Out the Trash, 5-24-10, http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_space_junk/all/1. DT)

Incidents like these served as clear signs from above that something must finally be done about space junk. Its proliferation threatens not only current and future space missions but also global communications—mobile phone networks, satellite television, radio broadcasts, weather tracking, and military surveillance, even the dashboard GPS devices that keep us from getting lost. The number of manufactured objects cluttering the sky is now expected to double every few years as large objects weaken and split apart and new collisions create more Kesslerian debris, leading to yet more collisions. NASA’s Bacon puts it bluntly: “The Kessler syndrome is in effect. We’re in a runaway environment, and we won’t be able to use space in the future if we don’t start dealing with this now.”

Now is key – Space debris is a huge problem in the status quoIngham in 11 (Richard, International coordinator of science, health and environment, AFP, Space debris is a growing problem, June 28, 2011, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iVhqW3f-eWKQv7bfqrhwA-JrlEfw?docId=CNG.6e145485d1197582aa5fe96d397320c0.71, NU)

 A scare triggered by orbital debris that on Tuesday came within a couple of hundred metres (yards) of the International Space Station (ISS) sheds light on an acutely worsening problem. Millions of chunks of metal, plastic and glass are whirling round Earth, the garbage left from 4,600 launches in 54 years of space exploration. The collision risk is low, but the junk travels at such high speed that even a tiny shard can cripple a satellite costing tens of millions of dollars. Around 16,000 objects bigger than 10 centimetres (four inches) across are tracked by the US Space Surveillance Network, according to NASA's specialist newsletter (newsletterhttp://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/newsletter/pdfs/ODQNv15i1.pdf). There are around 500,000 pieces between one and 10 cms (half and four inches), while the total of particles smaller than one centimetre (half an inch) "probably exceeds tens of millions," NASA says elsewhere on its website. The rubbish comes mainly from old satellites and upper stages of rockets whose residual fuel or other fluids explode while they turn in orbit. As the junk bumps and grinds, more debris results. Another big source, though, is a Chinese weather satellite, Fengyun-1C, which China destroyed in a test of an anti-satellite weapon in 2007. Debris specialists and satellite operators were incensed. At a stroke, it helped increase the tally of large debris by more than a third. In May 2009, a 10-cm (four-inch) chunk from Fengyun-1C passed within three kilometres (1.8 miles) of the US space shuttle Atlantis, prompting plans for evasive manoeuvres that proved to be unneeded.

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Brink: Space Debris Clean-Up Necessary

Space debris removal needed now. David 10 (Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999., Space.com, Space Junk Mess Getting Messier in Orbit, http://www.space.com/7956-space-junk-mess-messier-orbit.html, 2/23/10, rn)

Duck or pluck? Playing dodge ball with high-speed space debris is one tactic. But there is also a growing interest in removing the most troublesome objects — perhaps an annual quota of some sort. Targeted would be specific inclination bands and altitude regimes, Klinkrad said. But prior to implementing debris remediation measures on a global scale, technical, operational, legal and economic problems must be overcome. Klinkrad and NASA's Johnson provided a wearisome appraisal of the future. Even with an immediate halt of launch activities, spacefaring nations will be dealing with an unstable low-Earth orbit environment in some altitude and inclination bands. This would be a consequence of about 20 catastrophic collisions within the next 200 years, the two orbital debris experts explained. Some orbit altitudes already have critical mass concentrations that will trigger "collisional cascading" within a few decades, unless debris environment remediation measures are introduced.

Space cleanup a necessity: Junk levels criticalMagnusson 10 (Stew, Journalist and Author, National Defense Magazine, Taking Out the Trash: What Can Be Done About Space Debris?, 7/2010, http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2010/July/Pages/WhatCanBeDoneAboutSpaceDebris.aspx, MS)

What goes up doesn’t necessarily come down when it comes to manmade objects orbiting the planet. During the last 52 years, the space-faring nations of the world have trashed the low, medium and geosynchronous orbits where their satellites operate . The Air Force is improving its ability to monitor all the active and dead satellites, spent rocket boosters, collision wreckage and debris from anti-satellite tests that threaten commercial, scientific and military satellites alike. A new satellite dedicated to monitoring space is expected to be launched this year, and the service says it is improving its ability to predict possible accidents. Until recently, though, little thought was given to ideas that would remove the trash itself . But that has changed. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and NASA are teaming up to find out what, if anything, can be done to clean up space. It will be a daunting challenge, both technically and financially, experts said at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. “The number of manmade objects continues to accumulate in orbit,” said Nicolas Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris. Of the 20,000 or so objects tracked by the Air Force, about 95 percent of them are about the size of a marble, or larger. Even something as small as one centimeter in diameter can cause a catastrophic accident , he noted. As for the unknown number of objects smaller than that size, estimates are as high as 500,000, he said. The amount of debris could rise exponentially, Johnson and other experts have suggested. A collision creates more debris, which increases the chance for other collisions, and so on. A case in point is the January 2009 incident where a defunct Russian Cosmos satellite slammed into an active Iridium communications satellite at a speed of about 15,000 miles per hour about 490 miles above Siberia. The accident created hundreds of objects large enough to damage other spacecraft. Johnson estimated that in the future, collisions will be the number one source of new orbital debris. Retired Lt. Gen. Brian Arnold, vice president for space strategy at Raytheon space and airborne systems and former commander of the Air Force’s space and missile systems center, said, “Virtually every time we launch a vehicle into space, we contribute and continue to contribute to space debris. Fuel tanks, bolts, and screws come loose, paint chips come off and eventually satellites die in orbit.” Johnson said, “The most effective means of curtailing the long-term hazard to operational space craft is to remove the large …   nonfunctional spacecraft and rocket bodies which now number about 4,000.” The Air Force is improving its ability to monitor objects in space and predict possible “conjunctions,” which is its euphemism for collisions. Since last year, it has catalogued an additional 500 objects, pushing the number it tracks to about 20,000. Its series of earth-based Cold War era radars and optical sensors can track items about the size of a basketball or larger. However, many of these radars were first used to track incoming missiles from the former Soviet Union and are configured for the Northern Hemisphere. There is a lack of assets in the south, Air Force officials have said. Gen. C. Robert Kehler, Air Force Space Command commander, said the service is now able to track all “active satellites in orbit” and do conjunction analysis for each of them. Later this year, the Air Force hopes to launch its space-based space situational awareness (SBSS) satellite. The optical sensor aboard the aircraft will be placed in low-earth orbit and be able to track new satellites as they are being placed into space, he said. Col. James Jordan, space-based surveillance system mission director, said the satellite will be able to search for previously uncatalogued objects.  “There may be things out there that are just too small for current systems to pick up,” he told reporters. How small an object the

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new system will be able to detect is classified. The gimbaled camera will only be able to look up, and finding debris in low-earth orbit — roughly 100 to 1,250 miles up — will not be possible. Radars may be best suited for that range, he said. The Air Force wants to maintain this capability beyond the life of the SBSS spacecraft, he said. There will be an open competition for a follow-on satellite later his year. And “we have done some studies that suggest having two on orbit would be a good thing to do,” he added. The increased analysis and tracking is all very well and good, said Arnold. But when it comes to preventing two objects from striking each other, at least one of them has to be an active spacecraft with some available fuel. If not, “all we can do is sit back and watch those two systems collide because they cannot be moved,” he said. The vast majority of space junk is small and cannot be moved under its own power, he added. There are the beginnings of an effort to actually remove orbital trash, said Roger Hall, a DARPA project manager. “Space situational awareness is an enabler, not a response,” he said. In December, DARPA and NASA hosted the first international conference on space debris removal. It attracted 300 participants from several nations. DARPA also sent out a request for information from industry with an eye toward funding a program if an intriguing proposal came forth. A DARPA website devoted to the RFI showed that about 20 organizations from private industry and academia had submitted ideas. Meanwhile, the Surrey Space Center in the United Kingdom announced in March that it was working with the European space company, Astrium, to build a three-kilogram nanosatellite, called the CubeSail. It hopes to deploy a solar sail that would connect to a piece of space debris, unfurl itself and then drag the object into the atmosphere where it would burn up. Solar sails collect charged particles emanating from the sun to provide propulsion. The demonstration is slated for late 2011. A larger sail could be scaled upwards to take larger objects such as defunct satellites out of orbit, said a Surrey Space Center statement. Johnson stressed that space debris is not solely a U.S. problem. It is actually a minority contributor to the collection of orbital junk, he maintained. “Space is an international commons,” he said. Cleaning it up “will likely be an international undertaking.” 

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Brink: ISS

Space debris threat increasing now-ISS avoidance maneuvers prove. Carbonnel 6/28 (Alissa de Carbonnel, writer at Reuters.com, Reuters.com, Space debris risks colliding with orbital station, 6/28/11; http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/28/us-russia-us-space-idUSTRE75R48M20110628, rn)

(Reuters) - Six astronauts were forced to take refuge aboard the International Space Station's "lifeboat" crafts on Tuesday, bracing for the threat of a collision with floating space debris, the Russian space agency said. "A situation arose linked to unidentified 'space trash' passing very close to the space station. The crew was told to take their places aboard the Soyuz spacecraft," Roskomos said in a statement. The space junk narrowly missed the vulnerable orbiting station by just 250 meters (820 feet) on Tuesday as astronauts were prepared to jump ship, the RIA Novosti news agency cited an official as saying. It is not the first time space station crews have scrambled for shelter from accumulated space junk. Crews are routinely put on alert to prepare to move out of harm's way. Three crew members were forced briefly to evacuate the space station in an incident in March 2009. The station -- a $100 billion project of 16 nations under construction about 220 miles above the earth since 1998 -- is currently manned by three Russians, two Americans and a Japanese astronaut.

Now is key – The ISS was threatened by fly-by space debris. We need to take action before anything happens that hurts US space policy.The West Australian in 11 (Locally-edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia, AAP Breaking News, Space Debris narrowly misses ISS, June 29, 2011, http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/9753953/space-debris-narrowly-misses-iss/, NU)

A piece of space debris narrowly missed the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday in a rare incident that forced the six-member crew to scramble to their rescue craft, space agency officials said. The object was projected to miss the orbiting lab by just 250 metres, NASA said, and the crew moved to shelter 18 minutes before it was expected to pass. "There was a piece of space debris that came near the station and we didn't find out about it in time to perform a debris avoidance manoeuvre so we had the crew shelter in place in their Soyuz vehicles," spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz of the US space agency told AFP. "The six astronauts climbed into the two Soyuz craft at 7:50 am Eastern time (2150 AEST), and the expected time of closest approach to the object was 8:08," Schierholz said. "They spent about half an hour in their Soyuz," she said. "They are back to their regular day." The event was unusual but not unheard of, she added. A similar event on March 12, 2009 forced the crew of the space station to seek temporary shelter when a piece of space debris approached. "We monitor space debris pretty closely so this is not, sort of, out of the realm of what we know can happen," Schierholz said

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Brink: Other

Current space debris regulations insufficient, immediate action to remove debris needed. Pearson et.al 10(Jerome Pearson, Ohio Eta ’61, is president of STAR, Inc business that has developed concepts for DOD and NASA; invented the Earth and lunar space elevators, developed multi-winglets for lowered aircraft drag, published engineering solutions to space debris, and conceived spacecraft EDDE., he was an engineer at NASA Langley and Ames research centers and a branch chief for the Air Force Research Laboratory, ACTIVE DEBRIS REMOVAL: EDDE, THE ELECTRODYNAMIC DEBRIS ELIMINATOR, 2010, http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/EDDE_IAC_Final_Paper.pdf, rn)

Space debris from discarded upper stages, dead satellites, and assorted pieces from staging and tank explosions has been growing since the beginning of the space age. This has increased the risk to active satellites, and the need for avoidance maneuvering. These thousands of pieces of space junk in Earth orbit pose risks to our space assets such as communication and navigation satellites, environmental monitoring satellites, the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station (ISS)1. More importantly, they pose a risk to the astronauts who work outside the space station or who repair satellites, as the space shuttle Atlantis astronauts did for Hubble last year. In addition to the Hubble’s bad camera and failing gyros, its solar array had a hole in it the size of a .22-caliber bullet. Figure 1 is a depiction of the tracked objects over 2 kg crossing the orbit of a space vehicle in low Earth orbit (LEO). Up until last year, the dangers of space debris were generally ignored under the “big sky” view that space is very empty. But the loss of the operating Iridium 33 satellite changed that. Since then, there have been Congressional hearings and international conferences discussing the problems of space debris, how to reduce the risks, and whether we can afford it. The U. S. Strategic Command keeps track of about 20,000 catalog debris objects and the 800 active satellites, calculates potential collisions, and issues warnings to satellite operators. Each day they produce 800 “conjunction analyses,” about one for every active satellite. Many satellites can maneuver out of the way of debris when a near approach is predicted. However, STRATCOM does not have the resources to predict every potential conjunction, and no warning was issued on the Iridium/Cosmos collision last year. The NASA Orbital Debris Program Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston studies space debris and formulates rules to limit debris creation. These rules include eliminating throwaway bolts and latches when spacecraft are placed in orbit, venting fluid tanks to prevent explosions, and requiring that satellites re-enter the atmosphere within 25 years after their missions are completed. But the office director, Nicholas Johnson, says that unless we begin removing existing debris from orbit, the inevitable collisions involving objects like 8-ton rocket bodies and 5-ton dead satellites will create tens of thousands of new pieces of debris, resulting in the “debris runaway” or “Kessler Syndrome” that would make LEO unusable for hundreds of years2.

If we don’t act, an economic barrier to space exploration will ariseBroad in 07. (Writer for the NY times, NY times, Orbiting junk in space, once a nuisance, is now a threat - Health & Science, 2-6-7, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/health/06iht-web.0206space.4485857.html?pagewanted=2. DT)

If nothing is done, a kind of orbital crisis might ensue that is known as the Kessler Syndrome, after Kessler. A staple of science fiction, it holds that the space around Earth becomes so riddled with junk that launchings are almost impossible. Vehicles that entered space would quickly be destroyed. In an interview, Kessler called the worst-case scenario an exaggeration. "It's been overdone," he said of the syndrome. Still, he warned of an economic barrier to space exploration that could arise. To fight debris, he said, designers will have to give spacecraft more and more shielding, struggling to protect the craft from destruction and making them heavier and more costly in the process. At some point, he said, perhaps centuries from now, the costs will outweigh the benefits. "It gets more and more expensive," he said. "Sooner or later it gets too expensive to do business in space."

The best plan is to take out 3 to 10 pieces of concerning debris per year – without immediate action collisions and debris are bound to increase. Barbee et. al 11 (Brent William, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, with Elfego Pinon III, Emergent Space Technologies, Inc., Kenn Gold, Emergent Space Technologies, Inc., David Gaylor, Emergent Space Technologies, Inc., and Salvatore Alfano, Center for Space Standards and Innovation, Aerospace Conference 2011 IEEE, Design of spacecraft missions to remove multiple orbital debris objects, March 2011, http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5747303&tag=1, SP)Estimates of Cascading Failure for LEO

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Predictions generated by NASA of the orbital debris environ ment show that even an immediate halt of all launch activities will still result in an increase in collision events, and thus an increase in the debris environment. The projected mass of collision fragments greater than 10 cm is expected to first exceed those due to end of life explosions or fragmentation events by the year 2040, and to exceed it by a factor of two by the year 2100 [6]. The Need for Active Debris Removal Long term forecasting predicts approximately 20 catastrophic collisions during the next 200 years [7]. In December of 2009, DARPA and NASA held the first International Con ference on Orbit Debris Removal. More than 50 papers were presented discussing the technology requirements for removal, as well as legal, economic and policy concerns. The need was recognized at the conference for a service vehi cle having adequate maneuverability, rendezvous and dock ing capability, and the ability to make a secure attachment to an arbitrarily rotating object. Projections for the future state of orbital debris show that if all launch activity was stopped now, the debris field would continue to grow, with cascad ing failures making the space environment essentially unus able by 2100. Projections showing the use of active debris removal technology demonstrate that if three to five pieces of the most concerning debris objects were removed per year, this environment could be stabilized, and that the removal of ten or more per year would begin the process of mitigating the problem [5]. Figure 2 shows the predicted effect of ac tively removing objects to mitigate the growth of the debris population.

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LEO Orbit = High Amount of Space Debris

Greatest risk of space debris within the LEO region - region where most human-space interaction takes placePearson et.al-10 (Jerome Pearson, Ohio Eta ’61, is president of STAR, Inc business that has developed concepts for DOD and NASA; invented the Earth and lunar space elevators, developed multi-winglets for lowered aircraft drag, published engineering solutions to space debris, and conceived spacecraft EDDE., he was an engineer at NASA Langley and Ames research centers and a branch chief for the Air Force Research Laboratory, ACTIVE DEBRIS REMOVAL: EDDE, THE ELECTRODYNAMIC DEBRIS ELIMINATOR, 2010, http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/EDDE_IAC_Final_Paper.pdf, rn) Space debris can be divided into SSdifferent orbital regimes and levels of danger to spacecraft and astronauts. Most catalogued debris is in LEO, defined as orbits below 2000 km altitude. In geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), there are many high-value broadcast satellites and environmental satellites, but relatively few debris objects. The debris objects in GEO, such as the Galaxy 15 satellite that is drifting, move at low velocities relative to operational satellites, and do not yet pose the danger of high-velocity collisions that can create tens of thousands of new pieces of debris. In medium Earth orbit (MEO), defined as orbits between 2000 km and GEO, there are fewer satellites and debris objects, and the dangers of collisions are much lower. The LEO regime represents the more immediate problem. There are more debris objects, the results of collisions can be more catastrophic, and the highest value asset, the International Space Station, is in LEO. For these reasons, active debris removal in LEO should be addressed first. Table I describes the lethal debris objects in LEO. They can be usefully divided into 3 categories based on their size and the resulting nature of their threat: The bullets are the primary threat to operational satellites, and most new bullets come from car collisions. This means that we must remove the cars to prevent LEO pollution with new bullets. A December 2009 conference sponsored by NASA and DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), featured many proposed solutions, including large orbiting shields to catch small debris, ground-based lasers to ablate the front side of debris to deboost it, and active spacecraft to capture large debris items and drag them down to atmospheric entry3.

Space debris has consumed our lower earth orbit and has the potential to destroy our satellites. Ansdell in 10 (Master in international Science and Technology Policy at the University’s Elliott school of International Affairs with a focus on space policy, Princeton Journal of Public and International Affairs, Space Debris Removal, http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf, AX)

There are currently hundreds of millions of space debris fragments orbiting the Earth at speeds of up to several kilometers per second. Although the majority of these fragments result from the space activities of only three countries—China, Russia, and the United States—the indiscriminate nature of orbital mechanics means that they pose a continuous threat to all assets in Earth’s orbit. There are now roughly 300,000 pieces of space debris large enough to completely destroy operating satellites upon impact

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Advantage 1: Satellites (1/6)

The military relies on satellites for accurate surveillance and intelligence gatheringShort No Date (Nicholas M. Sr, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Technical and Historical Perspective of Remote

Sensing, Military Intelligence Satellites, No Date, http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Intro/Part2_26e.html, NG) Looking down and out (as from a mountain) to survey the battlefield for information useful to military leaders goes back to ancient times. In Napoleonic times, the French used observation balloons to scan their foes before and during battles. This technique was often a factor in the U.S. Civil War. By the First World War, airplanes and dirigibles were employed over enemy lines and their staging areas and cities as platforms from which aerial photography provided reconnaissance and intelligence pertinent to the content of battle. This approach was much expanded during the Second World War, as for example the follow-ups to a bombing raid to assess damage to the target. With the advent of rockets and then satellites, observations of both military and political activities on the ground became possible, ushering in the so-called Age of Spy Satellites. Since the beginning of entry into space, hundreds of these satellites have been launched, first by the U.S. and the Soviet Union and then other nations. Besides surveillance of a wide variety of targets of interest to military intelligence units (in the United States, these include the Department of Defense, the CIA, the National Security Agency, and Homeland Defense), satellites can now assist in areas other than simply observing features on the ground - this includes communications, meteorology, oceanography, location (Global Position Systems [GPS]), and Early Warning Systems (none of these latter applications will be discussed on this page). In addition to satellites, manned aircraft continue to be platforms and in recent years UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) such as drones have assumed some of the intelligence-gathering tasks.

Position of satellites and increasing amount of debris in space threaten collisions. Butt and Black 10 (Samuel Black is a research associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center. Previously, he was a research assistant at the Center for Defense Information. He holds undergraduate degrees in government and politics and a graduate degree in public policy from the University of Maryland. Yousaf Butt is a staff scientist in the High-Energy Astrophysics Division at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and is currently on leave at the National Academy of Sciences. Previously, he worked on NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory Project and served as a research fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program. He holds a PhD in experimental nuclear astrophysic, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, The Growing threat of Space Debris, April 2010; http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5c1f1056-b59b-445d-a5ae-027b5c3b4aa4%40sessionmgr14&vid=18&hid=14, rn)

The threat to satellites in low Earth orbit is heightened because most are not in equatorial orbits, but rather in polar or near-polar orbits.21 Because all satellites in such orbits cross above Earth’s poles, the risk of collision near these two spots is dramatically higher than the risk of collision at any other point during an orbit, creating a polar bottleneck. The spatial density of satellites over the poles is approximately 10 times greater than that over the equator. As a result, the debris problem is exacerbated by two crowding problems: the concentration of debris at certain altitudes and the frequent, high-speed approaches occurring over the poles.

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Advantage 1: Satellites (2/6)

Threats of collisions between space debris and satellites occurring now, empirically proven to destroy satellites and data gathering missions.Butt and Black 10 (Samuel Black is a research associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center. Previously, he was a research assistant at the Center for Defense Information. He holds undergraduate degrees in government and politics and a graduate degree in public policy from the University of Maryland. Yousaf Butt is a staff scientist in the High-Energy Astrophysics Division at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and is currently on leave at the National Academy of Sciences. Previously, he worked on NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory Project and served as a research fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program. He holds a PhD in experimental nuclear astrophysic, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, The Growing threat of Space Debris, April 2010; http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5c1f1056-b59b-445d-a5ae-027b5c3b4aa4%40sessionmgr14&vid=18&hid=14, rn)

It is estimated that a collision between an active satellite and a piece of dangerous debris (larger than 1 centimeter) will occur on average once every two to three years over the next decade.15 NASA contends that existing satellite debris shields can protect against impacts with such dangerous debris. Even if true, there are more than 300,000 pieces of debris larger than 1 centimeter in low Earth orbit, and fewer than 20,000 of them are tracked regularly by the United States.16 Aside from posing a risk to satellites, debris threatens better-protected manned spacecraft as well. On March 12, 2009, the crew of the International Space Station was forced to evacuate to a docked Soyuz spacecraft in response to a debris fragment’s predicted close approach. Another piece of debris threatened the station four days later. Then, on March 22, the space station and the docked space shuttle were forced to change orbit to avoid an approaching Chinese rocket-booster fragment.17 Although both manned and unmanned spacecraft can be maneuvered to avoid potential collisions if enough warning is provided, such maneuvers use limited fuel, which can shorten the operational lifetime of the spacecraft, and disrupt data and other satellite services. (In some cases it can take many hours to plan and execute such a maneuver; for the International Space Station, for example, it takes approximately 30 hours.)18 Furthermore, because there is very little atmospheric drag at the high altitudes associated with low Earth orbit, debris can remain there for decades.19 Independent studies predict that roughly one quarter of the debris larger than 10 centimeters created in the Iridium collision will remain in orbit for more than 30 years. Roughly 15 percent of 1–10 centimeter debris is expected to remain in orbit even longer.20

Space debris increases satellite collisions and decreases access to space. Clark- 10 (Stuart Clark is an astronomy journalist and holds a first class honours degree and a PhD in astrophysics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a former Vice Chair of the Association of British Science Writers. He writes for the Space Agency as senior editor for space science. In addition, he writes articles and news for New Scientist, The Times, BBC Focus and BBC Sky at Night and is a former editor of Astronomy Now magazine. Stuart was the Director of Public Astronomy Education at the University of Hertfordshire., New Scientist, Who you gonna call? Junk busters! 9/11/2010; http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=14&sid=7ac5f409-0ed2-4624-9745d27b1812ca59%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=58665244, rn)

We'll soon be cut off from space if we don't deal with the debris in orbit, warns Stuart Clark EARTH'S rings have never looked so beautiful, you think as you look up at the pallid sliver of light arcing through the night sky. Yet unlike Saturn's magnificent bands of dust and rubble, Earth's halo is one of our own making. It is nothing but space junk, smashed-up debris from thousands of satellites that once monitored our climate, beamed down TV programmes and helped us find our way around. This scenario is every space engineer's nightmare. It is known as the Kessler syndrome after Donald Kessler, formerly at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Back in 1978, he and colleague Burton Cour-Palais proposed that as the number of satellites rose, so would the risk of accidental collisions. Such disasters would create large clouds of shrapnel, making further collisions with other satellites more likely and sparking a chain reaction that would swiftly surround the Earth with belts of debris. Orbits would become so clogged as to be unusable and eventually our access to space would be completely blocked.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Advantage 1: Satellites (3/6)

Space debris wipe out satellites, threatening national security and increasing spending.Imburgia 2011(Joseph S., author in Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law; “Space Debris and Its Threat to National Security: A Proposal for a Binding International Agreement to Clean Up the Junk.” May 2011 http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=6e7410a9-26b2-454c-a808-c656e99bad12%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d SH)

Because so much of the United States’ security depends on satellites, these integral space-based capabilities would, therefore, be costly to lose. That loss would be felt in more than just the security arena. Due to the steep price tags attached to some of the national space security platforms, the economic loss of a satellite due to space debris would also be significant. For example, a pair of new Global Positioning Satellites (GPS), which provides valuable targeting and battle space awareness to military commanders, costs $1.5 billion.166 Accordingly, if a piece of space debris destroys one of these satellites, $750 million could be lost instantly. Additionally, NASA invests billions of dollars annually in space assets. Congress provided NASA with $18.3 billion to spend on space utilization and exploration for fiscal year 2010, and it provided $17.7 billion for fiscal year 2011.167 Air Force General (retired) Ronald E. Keys, former Commander of Air Combat Command, summed it up best, stating that a great deal “rides on space-borne satellites.”168 Because these space capabilities are so costly yet so vital to the United States’ national security and economic well-being, the preservation of these space capabilities should also be vital.

Space debris threatens satellite efficiency, increasing tensions and reducing domestic security. Butt and Black 10 (Samuel Black is a research associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center. Previously, he was a research assistant at the Center for Defense Information. He holds undergraduate degrees in government and politics and a graduate degree in public policy from the University of Maryland. Yousaf Butt is a staff scientist in the High-Energy Astrophysics Division at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and is currently on leave at the National Academy of Sciences. Previously, he worked on NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory Project and served as a research fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program. He holds a PhD in experimental nuclear astrophysic, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, The Growing threat of Space Debris, April 2010; http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5c1f1056-b59b-445d-a5ae-027b5c3b4aa4%40sessionmgr14&vid=18&hid=14, rn)

The united states is heavily reliant upon satellites. These satellites save lives, strengthen the economy, and provide invaluable support to the military and intelligence services. To wit, there are approximately 300,000 emergency GPS receivers used in the United States to aid search and- rescue teams, and the space industry supports about 729,000 U.S. jobs.1 During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, precision-guided munitions, most guided by GPS-based satellite navigation, made up two thirds of all the bombs used.2 Yet satellites are also highly vulnerable. The space environment is a harsh vacuum that is constantly swept by solar storms, naturally occurring micrometeoroids, and a hail of fast-moving space debris. Most satellites travel at speeds ranging from 3.1 kilometers per second to 7.8 kilometers per second—many times faster than a bullet.3 When satellites and space debris collide at such speeds, the results can be catastrophic. In peacetime, the consequences include damage or destruction worth many millions of dollars and a gap in satellite services. If a collision occurs during a crisis, it could be difficult to tell whether it was an accident or a purposeful act, which might exacerbate tensions or spark an armed conflict. Space debris also could damage communications and intelligence-gathering satellites when they are needed most.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Advantage 1: Satellites (4/6)

Catastrophic collision with space debris and satellites threaten US national security Imburgia 2011(Joseph S., author in Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law; “Space Debris and Its Threat to National Security: A Proposal for a Binding International Agreement to Clean Up the Junk.” May 2011 http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=6e7410a9-26b2-454c-a808-c656e99bad12%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d SH)

These gloomy prognostications about the threats to our space environment should be troubling to Americans. The United States relies on the unhindered use of outer space for national security.151 According to a space commission led by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, “[t]he [United States] is more dependent on space than any other nation.”152 According to Robert G. Joseph, former Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department, “space capabilities are vital to our national security and to our economic well-being.”153 Therefore, a catastrophic collision between space debris and the satellites on which that national security so heavily depends poses a very real and current threat to the national security interests of the United States.

The loss of one military satellite by space debris kills communication increasing chances of failure and threat to national security Imburgia 2011(Joseph S., author in Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law; “Space Debris and Its Threat to National Security: A Proposal for a Binding International Agreement to Clean Up the Junk.” May 2011 http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=6e7410a9-26b2-454c-a808-c656e99bad12%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d SH)

With the modern speed of warfare, it has become difficult to fight conflicts without the timely May 2008 malfunction of a communications satellite demonstrates the fragile nature of the satellite communications system. 159 The temporary loss of a single satellite “effectively pulled the plug on what executives said could [have been] as much as 90 percent of the paging network in the United States.”160 Although this country’s paging network is perhaps not vital to its national security, the incident demonstrates the possible national security risks created by the simultaneous loss of multiple satellites due to space debris collisions. Simply put, the United States depends on space-based assets for national security, and those assets are vulnerable to space debris collisions. As Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Edward Markey stated, “American satellites are the soft underbelly of our national security.”161 The Rumsfeld Commission set the groundwork for such a conclusion in 2001, when it discussed the vulnerability of U.S. space-based assets and warned of the Space Pearl Harbor.162 Congress also recognized this vulnerability in June 2006, when it held hearings concerning space and its import to U.S. national power and security.163 In his June 2006 Congressional Statement, Lieutenant General C. Robert Kehler, then the Deputy Commander, United States Strategic Command, stated that “space capabilities are inextricably woven into the fabric of American security.”164 He added that these space capabilities are “vital to our daily efforts throughout the world in all aspects of modern warfare” and discussed how integral space capabilities are to “defeating terrorist threats, defending the homeland in depth, shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads and preventing hostile states and actors from acquiring or using WMD.”165 Because so much of the United States’ security depends on satellites, these integral space-based capabilities would, therefore, be costly to lose. That loss would be felt in more than just the security arena. Due to the steep price tags attached to some of the national space security platforms, the economic loss of a satellite due to space debris would also be significant.

Satellites are integral to the global telecommunication infrastructureAkir in 03. (Doctoral Student, Source Title, Space Security: Possible Issues & Potential Solutions, no specific date at least June of ‘03 based off of the bibliography, http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue6/pdf/ziad.pdf. DT)

Space communication, particularly satellite communication, is becoming an integral component of our overall global telecommunication infrastructure. Satellites are being used for communication, navigation, remote sensing, imaging, and weather forecasting. Satellites are also providing backup communication capabilities when terrestrial communication is interrupted in cases such as earthquakes or other natural (or unnatural) disasters. The September 11th events in 2001 demonstrated the value of redundant satellite systems in supporting rescue efforts. 1 Many governments around the world, including the U nited States, rely on commercial satellite systems for communication, commerce, and defense. Commercial satellite systems include ground based components such as earth station antennas, data terminals, and mobile terminals; and space-based components include satellites and other systems (e.g. space station and launching vehicles) now essential to global function

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Advantage 1: Satellites (5/6)

Satellites are crucial to military communication infrastructureAkir in 03 (Doctoral Student, Source Title, Space Security: Possible Issues & Potential Solutions, no date, but at least june of 03 based off of the bibliography, http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/issue6/pdf/ziad.pdf. DT)

Commercial space systems are vital in support of military and other governmental operations and activities. Military forces can often operate in environments with little or no existing communication infrastructure. Collecting information in the form of mapping and real-time movements of enemy forces is of crucial importance. Commercial satellite imagery systems are used by governments to achieve their national security interests. 15 During the U.S. showdown with Iraq earlier this year, the U.S. government used satellites to track the movement of the Iraqi military as well as keeping track on the where-about of the Iraqi weapons. 16 Failure in commercial satellite operation may have devastating consequences on the outcome of a military or political conflict.

US Satellites key to banking, telecommunications, security, and transportationMatthews 11 (William, Defense News, Gannet Government Media Corporation, leading military and government news, Keep Space Debris Free US Congress Told, March 20, 2011, http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3999596&c=AIR&s=TOP, NG)

China showed it can destroy an orbiting satellite, so did the United States. Now Russia wants that capability, too. The proliferation of anti-satellite weapons will pose serious problems for the space-dependent U.S. military and the U.S. economy, space experts told a House subcommittee. Satellites are critical to the United States for such essential services as banking, telecommunications, utilities, transportation, homeland security, even agriculture, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. James Armor told the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee March 18. For the military, satellites have become indispensable for activities ranging from intelligence-gathering to communications and navigation, he said. "There is a risk that China or another adversary could exploit this fast-growing U.S. dependence on space in a war to greatly weaken U.S. military and economic power," said Bruce MacDonald of the Council on Foreign Relations. What's the United States to do? One thing not to do is to promote an arms race in space, MacDonald said. Since 2006, U.S. policy has declared space to be a "vital national interest." That means the United States can deny others the use of space if that use is deemed hostile to the United States, MacDonald said. "But attacking others' space capabilities invites attacks on our own," he said. U.S. policy-makers must be careful not to develop anti-satellite capabilities or policies that are likely to provoke retaliation against U.S. space assets, he said. "If we can maintain space deterrence by other than offensive means, we should certainly do so," he said. "If there are no other feasible alternatives, then we should develop a limited offensive capability in a deterrence context." A key consideration for anti-satellite capabilities is to avoid creating more space debris, MacDonald said. He called for a ban on kinetic energy anti-satellite weapons that destroy satellites by smashing into them, creating a cloud of orbiting fragments. "

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Advantage 1: Satellites (6/6)

US relies on satellites for all military purposes. Hitchens 03 (Theresa, Disarmament Forum, Editor of Defense News 1998-2000, Vice President Center for Defense Initiatives, Making Space for Security, Monsters and Shadows: left unchecked, American fears regarding threats to space assets will drive weaponization, 2003, http://www.unidir.org/pdf/articles/pdf-art1884.pdf,pgs 16-17 NG)

The simple fact is that the American military could not operate the way it does today, on a worldwide basis, without the use of space. In particular, intelligence gathered via imaging and electronic eavesdropping satellites, instantaneous communications, and the use of satellite navigation tools to guide precision-weapons have totally reshaped the American way of war over the last decade. Indeed Pentagon officials to assess whether the military is overly dependent on space systems. 7 The United States outspends the rest of the world by vast amounts in the military space arena, accounting for 94.8% of global military space budgets in 1999. 8 And there i s a nea r l y ins a t i able demand among the American military services for more bandwidth as networking the battlefield, from mobile forces in the field to strategic bombers at home, has become a key goal of the Pentagon effort to transform American military operations to better meet the challenges of global engagement in the post-Cold War world. For example, the demand for access to the radio spectrum in Afghanistan for use in such tasks as guiding unmanned aerial vehicles exceeded the bandwidth available. According to the House Government Reform Committee, ‘Satellite bandwidth used in Operation Allied Force in Kosovo was 2.5 times that used in Desert Storm, while forces used were only one-tenth the size’—and the Pentagon’s spectrum requirements for mobile communications are expected to grow by 90% by 2005. 9 ‘Today, information gathered from and transmitted through space is an integral component of American military strategy and operations. Space-based capabilities enable military forces to be warned of missile attacks, to communicate instantaneously, to obtain near real-time information that can be transmitted rapidly from satellite to attack platform, to navigate to conflict area while avoiding hostile defenses along the way, and to identify and strike targets from air, land or sea with precise and devastating effect’, states the Space Commission report. 10 While many military satellites have built in certain types of protection, such as hardening against electro-magnetic radiation that would be emitted from a nuclear weapon burst, commercial satellites have little protection. In fact, a key concern for the American military is the vulnerability of communications satellites providing such services as television broadcasting, mobile telecommunications and Internet access. This is because the American military relies on commercial providers for about 60% of its communications needs. 11 Furthermore, Tenet has just directed American intelligence agencies to use more commercial imagery for mapping, and other purposes. 12 This is in part because so-called national technical means, the nation’s spy satellites, are being overtasked by the ‘war on terrorism’.

Satellites currently threatened by space debris.Kislyakov 10 (RIA Novosti political commentator, Military and Space Review, Space debris threaten Earth, Dec 22, 2010, http://english.ruvr.ru/radio_broadcast/36564197/37343874.html, MS)

Space debris denote man-made objects in orbit around Earth that no longer serve any useful purpose but which endanger operational satellites, primarily manned spacecraft. In some cases, space junk may threaten Earth during reentry because some fragments do not burn up completely and can hit houses, industrial facilities and transport networks. Right now, 40 million fragments of space debris weighing several thousand metric tons circle Earth. In mid-February last year, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs reaffirmed the importance of guiding principles to prevent the formation of space debris for all nations.

Satellite crowding increase threats of collisions with debris. Carbonnel 6/28 (Alissa de Carbonnel, writer at Reuters.com, Reuters.com, Space debris risks colliding with orbital station, 6/28/11; http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/28/us-russia-us-space-idUSTRE75R48M20110628, rn)

Only 10 percent of all objects in Earth's orbit are satellites, while the rest is trash: spent rocket stages, defunct satellites, acceleration blocks and other debris, a spokesman for the agency told state news agency Itar-tass. Even small objects present a danger to astronauts in orbit, where trash the size of an egg can travel at dangerous speeds. The minefield of space debris is a growing hazard with ever more satellites in orbit, and one of the most important challenges of future orbital ventures, industry expert Vladimir Gubarev told Reuters. "Everything is spaced out just some 100 meters from each other. One satellite gets in the way of the next. It's way too crowded," said Gubarev, a renown space journalist and the Soviet spokesman for the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975.

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Advantage 3: Accidental War

Space debris collisions and increasing satellite congestion increases the chances of satellite collisions and escalates to nuclear war. Tyson 07 (Rhianna Tyson, Program Officer of the global security institute, Global Security Institute, Advancing a Cooperative Security Regime in Outer Space, May 2007, http://www.gsinstitute.org/gsi/pubs/05_07_space_brief.pdf, rn)

Threats posed by and to outer space Threats to space assets grow with our ever-increasing uses of outer space. At present, there are over 800 commercially used satellites in orbit.2 Orbital paths are further cluttered by deserted spacecraft, discarded rocket debris and other “space junk” shed from hardware. A piece of space debris, with an average impact speed of 36,000 kilometers per hour,3 could destroy a satellite. While a collision of two operating satellites is predictable (yet nonetheless worrisome), the overcrowding of orbital paths heightens the risk of radio frequency interference, causing harmful disruptions in communication. Beyond the severe economic repercussions resulting from disrupted commercial satellite communications, hostile actions in space can result in grave security threats, especially in times of war. Militaries rely on satellites for monitoring of and communication with troops on the ground. If a military satellite was deceived, disrupted, denied, degraded or destroyed, commanders lose their communication capabilities, resulting in mounting tensions and an escalation of conflict. A worst-case scenario could involve inadvertent use of nuclear weapons; without satellite-enabled monitoring capability in a time of tension, or, if early warning systems give a false reading of an attack, governments may resort to using nuclear weapons.

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Advantage 5: Hubble Telescope Add-On

Space debris has recently increased dramatically at the altitude of the Hubble telescope, creating the possibility to block further space exploration.Black and Butt 10 (Samuel and Yousaf, research associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center and staff scientist in the High-Energy Astrophysics Division at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics that is currently on leave at the National Academy of Sciences, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The growing threat of space debris, March 2010, Vol. 66 Issue 2, p1-8, SP)

Unfortunately, existing efforts to prevent the creation of additional space debris are flawed in two important ways. First, destructive ASAT tests, each of which can create as much debris as is produced in decades of peaceful space operations, are addressed only tangentially by existing laws. Second, there is a lack of “rules of the road” for space. As more satellites populate orbits around Earth, the risk of collisions grows. For instance, on February 10, 2009, a satellite operated by the private company Iridium and a defunct Russian satellite collided, producing roughly 100,000 new pieces of debris larger than 1 centimeter in low Earth orbit, a region 200–2,000 kilometers above Earth’s surface that is already densely populated with both debris and active satellites. 11 It caused a roughly 70 percent increase in the amount of dangerous debris at 570 kilometers, the altitude of the Hubble telescope. Fortunately, most of the debris at lower altitudes will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere over the next decade.12

Space debris decreases quality of space observation. United Nations 99 (United Nations, Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Space, Technical Report on Space Debris, 1999, http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/pdf/reports/ac105/AC105_720E.pdf, NG)

Astronomers are observing during wide field imaging an increasing number of trails per plate caused by space debris. These trails degrade the quality of the observation. Space debris trailing will entirely negate a photometric observation when debris cross the narrow photometric field

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Advantage 6: Spin-Offs Add-On

Project ORION uses laser ablation to clean up space debris – laser ablation propulsion is a logical spin-off – this liberates NASA from the domination of cost as opposed to all other considerations.Phipps et. al 10 (Claude, Photonic Associates, LLC, 200A Ojo de la Vaca Road, Santa Fe NM 87508, USA , Willy Bohn, Bohn Laser Consult, Weinberg Weg 43, Stuttgart, Germany , Thomas Lippert, Paul Scherrer Institut, CH5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland , Akihiro Sasoh, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Nagoya University, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Japan , Wolfgang Schall, DLR Institute of Technical Physics, Stuttgart, Germany (retired) and John Sinko, Micro-Nano GCOE, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, International Symposium on High Power Laser Ablation 2010, A Review of Laser Ablation Propulsion, October 19 2010, http://materials.web.psi.ch/Publications/Publ_MatDev_files/2010/Claude_AIP_2010.pdf, SP)Orion

Laser space debris removal uses a high-intensity pulsed laser beam to ablate (not pulverize) a fraction of the debris itself in an orientation such that the debris is slowed sufficiently to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up. This system is discussed in detail in [22]. The way we send things to space from Earth is expensive, energy-inefficient and polluting. Present day costs of raising mass from the Earth’s surface into low Earth orbit (LEO) with chemical rockets is about $20,000/kg. This cost, equivalent to the cost of gold, dominates all other considerations relating to spaceflight, limiting what we consider to be possible. Phipps and Michaelis [6], using an innovative design for a high-power laser system appropriate for launching large payloads [43], showed that there is an optimum set of parameters for laser space propulsion which can reduce the cost of lifting mass to LEO nearly 100-fold [Figure 5]. Cost becomes $300/kg for five launches per day. At $300/kg, a spin around the Earth comes within a factor of three of the cost of a flight on the Concorde when it was still flying, adjusted for inflation.

Empirics prove - Econ collapse leads to war O’Donnell 9 (Sean Squad Leader in the Marine Corps Reserve and is currently a graduate student at the University of Baltimore studying law and ethics, Examiner.com, Will this recession lead to World War III?, February 26, 2009, http://www.examiner.com/republican-in-baltimore/will-this-recession-lead-to-world-war-iii, MS)

One of the causes of World War I was the economic rivalry that existed between the nations of Europe. In the 19th century France and Great Britain became wealthy through colonialism and the control of foreign resources. This forced other up-and-coming nations (such as Germany) to be more competitive in world trade which led to rivalries and ultimately, to war. After the Great Depression ruined the economies of Europe in the 1930s, fascist movements arose to seek economic and social control. From there fanatics like Hitler and Mussolini took over Germany and Italy and led them both into World War II. With most of North America and Western Europe currently experiencing a recession, will competition for resources and economic rivalries with the Middle East, Asia, or South American cause another world war? Add in nuclear weapons and Islamic fundamentalism and things look even worse. Hopefully the economy gets better before it gets worse and the terrifying possibility of World War III is averted. However sometimes history repeats itself.

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Advantage 7: ISS Add-On

The amount of space debris is growing, and is a concern for the International Space Station.The Daily Yomiuri, 2009 (The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japans leading English Newspaper, Tokyo, Space debris measures must be bolstered, February 9, 2009, LEXIS, http://www.lexisnexis.com/lnacui2api/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T12261605648&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T12261605651&cisb=22_T12261605650&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=145202&docNo=1, SP)

The likelihood of our planet becoming completely surrounded by space debris is a matter of increasing concern. The collision of a U.S. satellite weighing about half a ton with an unused Russian satellite about twice that weight, about 800 kilometers above the Earth's surface, reportedly produced a huge amount of debris. Surely the collision could have been avoided if their orbits had been changed. Since the world's first satellite was launched in 1957, thousands of satellite launches have taken place, meaning there are a large number of objects drifting around the Earth. Among the space debris in orbit around our planet are satellites that are no longer functioning, either because they have outlived their usefulness or have malfunctioned. Space debris also includes rocket booster parts, the remains of collisions among space vehicles and equipment dropped by astronauts. It is estimated that there are between 30 million and 40 million items of space debris currently adrift, weighing a total of several thousand tons. In 2007, China's destruction of one of its weather satellites in an experiment produced a huge amount of debris. If nothing is done to address the problem, mankind faces serious problems in its use of space as space debris has massive destructive potential. Such debris can travel at speeds of around five kilometers per second, while the energy generated from a collision of debris even just one centimeter across can be equivalent to that of a car crash on a highway. The smashing of space debris into a satellite is clearly disastrous. An international problem Previously, a French satellite was seriously damaged after colliding with space debris. In the United States, a rocket launch was postponed to prevent a collision with space debris. What is of particular concern this time is the threat to the International Space Station, which has been under construction with the participation of Japan and other nations. The ISS orbits about 400 kilometers beneath where the latest collision took place, and it is unlikely that debris will hit the ISS. But it is still possible that debris could pass over the ISS. An extended stay at the ISS by Koichi Wakata, the first of its kind for a Japanese astronaut, is expected to begin soon, and it is of some concern that the space shuttle flying to the ISS could be affected by the debris. The ISS is equipped with protective walls designed to absorb shocks from small debris and the station would alter its orbit to avoid large pieces of debris, which are tracked by radar from the ground by the U.S. military when a shuttle is to be launched. Breaking the cycle But if the amount of debris continues to increase, it will become more difficult to take all possible preventive measures. Greater precautions must therefore be taken to try and prevent trouble that could affect the ISS. A further concern is the apparent vicious circle of increased space debris from collisions, which in turn creates more potential for destruction, as can be seen in the latest collision. The growing amount of debris means the probability of a collision between a satellite and space debris is likely to increase rapidly in about a decade or so. International guidelines state that large satellites should be brought back to Earth. But is this enough? Is there no way that space debris can be collected? Japan needs to call on other nations that have space development programs to address the issue and play a more active role in strengthening measures to tackle the problem

Space debris threatens the International Space Station now-casualties turn public opinions against spaceflight. David 10 (Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999., Space.com, Space Junk Mess Getting Messier in Orbit, http://www.space.com/7956-space-junk-mess-messier-orbit.html, 2/23/10, rn)

Significant progress has been made by the U.S. and the international aerospace communities in recognizing the hazards of orbital debris, reported Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Johnson added that steps are being taken to reduce or eliminate the potential for the creation of new debris. However, "the future environment is expected to

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worsen without additional corrective measures," he noted. During 2009, Johnson reported, five different NASA robotic spacecraft carried out collision avoidance maneuvers: a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-3), Cloudsat, Earth Observing Mission 1, Aqua, and Landsat 7. Also, the space shuttle and the International Space Station took collision avoidance actions, he said. The worst thing that could happen, according to ESA's Klinkrad, is the International Space Station (ISS) receiving a fatal hit. The space station is currently home to five astronauts representing the U.S., Russia and Japan. "A penetrating object hitting the ISS, and possibly causing a casualty onboard . . . I think that would be the most dramatic case we could have," Klinkrad suggested. Such an incident might turn public opinion against human spaceflight, he said.

U.S has created enough debris through exploding satellites creating a threat to the space station Imburgia 2011(, Joseph S., author in Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law; “Space Debris and Its Threat to National Security: A Proposal for a Binding International Agreement to Clean Up the Junk.” May 2011 http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=6e7410a9-26b2-454c-a808-c656e99bad12%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d SH)

The United States’ contributions to the current space debris environment have also been noteworthy. In addition to the February 2009 satellite collision and the November 2008 loss of $100,000 worth of tools during a space walk,115 the United States temporarily, but intentionally, added to the space debris problem when it shot down an aging spy satellite.116 On February 14, 2008, the United States launched an Aegis-LEAP SM-3 interceptor missile from the USS Lake Erie to destroy the USA-193 spy satellite’s toxic hydrazine fuel propellant tank, which officials said could be hazardous if it crashed back to Earth.117 To prevent that from happening, the United States destroyed the satellite in LEO, just before it fell out of orbit.118 Some experts worried that “the impact would blast [more] debris into orbit around Earth, threatening the space station” and other space-based systems.119 However, the Pentagon and NASA planned for the created space debris to quickly disintegrate in Earth’s atmosphere..

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Orion Solvency (1/6)

ORION is critical for the protection of the ISS, and is economically feasibleBekey 97 (Ivan, President of Bekey Designs, writer for Aerospace America, Space Future, Orions Laser: Hunting Space Debris, Aerospace America, Vol 35, No. 4, pg 38-44 , http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/orions_laser_hunting_space_debris.shtml, NG)

But Orion's value to the ISS would become eminently clear if current models of the debris population were shown to be too optimistic, or if damage models for hypervelocity impacts were found to underestimate penetration probabilities for current shield designs. Under these conditions, which are a distinct possibility, the cost and weight required for increasing the station shield protection would likely be considerably greater than for simply fielding an Orion system. Even without such changes in the pertinent modeling, the roughly 10% probability of inhabited module penetration that current protection systems afford over the station lifetime could be viewed as unacceptably high, given that a relatively inexpensive Orion system could reduce it essentially to zero. If developed, an Orion debris clearing system would be inherently an international capability whoever develops and operates it. Its availability would ensure that all spacecraft are protected from debris impacts larger than about 1 cm and smaller than about 10-20 cm. Thus, since its benefits are international, the development and operation of an Orion system could be a prime candidate for an international undertaking. This study concluded that a system capable of removing essentially all dangerous debris in the targeted size range fromLEO is not currently feasible, but that its costs would be modest relative to those of shielding, repairing, or replacing affected high-value spacecraft. Moreover, the effectiveness of such a system does not depend on which of the current models of debris formation and impact damage ultimately prove correct. The study does not, however, advocate ending international efforts to avoid wanton creation of new debris, as there is no assurance that such debris would fall within the 1-10-cm range against which Orion is likely to be most effective.

Solvency of ORION is guaranteed, specifics such as laser intensity are knownBekey 97 (Ivan, President of Bekey Designs, writer for Aerospace America, Space Future, Orions Laser: Hunting Space Debris, Aerospace America, Vol 35, No. 4, pg 38-44 , http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/orions_laser_hunting_space_debris.shtml, NG)

The analysis then proceeded to define the laser intensity required at the debris to cause the desired velocity change for various objects; the effects of the atmosphere on the laser beam and how to minimize them; and the required characteristics of the laser and beam director. Four surveillance techniques were also analyzed. Sid Sridharan of Lincoln Lab, in conjunction with David Spencer of the Air Force Phillips Lab, defined a number of reference target objects spanning the range of observed debris. These included thin sheets, pieces of trusses, metal spheres from a molten Soviet orbital reactor, and tank pieces. The characteristics of these objects were used to determine requirements for designing the Orion systems. The coupling coefficient between the incident laser energy and the resulting dynamic reaction from the plasma blowoff was determined from calculated and experimentally derived values by Claude Phipps, formerly of Los Alamos Lab. The optimum coupling coefficient was determined for each class of targets. It varied between 4 and 7.5 dyne-sec/Joule and was found to be relatively insensitive to the incident laser intensity after a critical value, one sufficient to cause a plasma to be formed and blown off the object, was reached. This held, provided that the laser pulses were extremely short so as to prevent masking of a pulse by the plasma formed by the previous pulse.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Orion Solvency (2/6)

Orion provides the best timeframe - Irradiation methods guarantee space debris will instantly drop through the atmosphere and burn up, rather than slowly descend.Bekey 97 (Ivan, President of Bekey Designs, writer for Aerospace America, Space Future, Orions Laser: Hunting Space Debris, Aerospace America, Vol 35, No. 4, pg 38-44 , http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/orions_laser_hunting_space_debris.shtml, NG)

Among the strategies analyzed for irradiating debris, causing immediate reentry of random debris objects by irradiating continuously during a single pass over a laser was selected as the simplest operationally: Collocate the sensor and laser, point the sensor at a given angle above the horizon, then fire at any debris that enters the sensor's field of view. Firing would, of course, be inhibited when known satellites appear, as per current doctrine. The study determined that the optimum strategy is to engage the debris from about 30 � above the horizon on an ascending pass, and to stop the firing when the object nears its zenith. This will rotate the object's velocity vector and reduce its perigee to 200 km, enough to cause essentially immediate reentry. This strategy also avoids having to track the debris and predict its ephemeris for reengagement on a different pass, a very difficult task because of the uncertain ballistic coefficient of most debris objects. The statistical characteristics of the debris population show peaks in their altitude distribution at about 800 and 1,500 km. Thus it was decided that a near-term system should be able to remove debris up to an altitude of 800 km (this would protect the ISS as well as systems such as Teledesic and Iridium); a longer term system should be effective up to 1,500-km altitude. A single laser site at sufficiently low latitude would eventually be able to target essentially all such orbital debris. The velocity change to be imparted to the debris was then calculated to be about 150 m/sec for 800-km-altitude objects and 300 m/sec for 1,500-km-altitude objects, if their orbits are circular. The requirements are closer to 150-200 m/sec for the elliptical orbits typical of most debris. Such a velocity change to its orbit is enough to cause an object's perigee to drop to about 200 km, at which time its orbital lifetime is only a few orbits; it can then be considered to have been deorbited essentially right away.

The aff solves – Project ORION is the best option.Wilder 10 (Benjamin, Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy, B.S., University of South Alabama, Naval Postgraduate School, Thesis for a Master of Science in Physics at the Naval Postgraduate School, Power Beaming, Orbital Debris Removal, And Other Space Applications Of A Ground Based Free Electron Laser, March 2010, http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada518696.pdf, SP)

Considering the alarming rate of orbital debris generation, the era of mankind’s open and relatively simple access to space may be coming to an end. Any increase of fragmentation events, such as through a future war with anti-satellite engagements or simply from the continued collisions in crowded orbits, has the potential to render those orbits virtually useless for generations to come. If the Chinese ASAT engagement above generated ~3,000 pieces of debris, an anti-satellite war that destroys only 10 satellites could immediately double the current debris population, and this large debris field would spread over time to other orbits ”near” the parent satellite. Currently, there are no programs for the removal of space debris from orbit, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has only recently enacted guidelines to limit the creation of orbital debris. Likewise, the space debris problem will not “solve itself” in the near future. The anticipated orbital lifetime of debris in the 8001100 km range is on the order of 10,000 years [52, p. 576]. The space tug concept discussed in Chapter V may be one method to reduce the amount of large debris, such as rocket bodies and non-functional spacecraft, by hauling these items into lower disposal orbits that experience higher atmospheric drag. Similarly, by reducing the larger parent objects, much of the future fragmentation debris growth could be avoided. For smaller debris, the most-promising, near-term method of debris removal is through the illumination of debris clouds with a high energy laser to lower the perigee of their orbits as proposed by Project Orion.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Orion Solvency (3/6)

Orion cleans small debris - Large debris cleanup is unimportant and happening in the squo, small debris is almost impossible to track and can cause enormous problemsGanguli, Crabtree, Rudkov, Chappie 4-7-11 (Gurudas, Christopher, Leonid, Scott, Plasma Physics Researcher at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C, Icarus Research Incorporation, Naval Center For Space Technology Naval Research Laboratory, Cornell University Library- Space Physics, A Concept For Elimination of Small Orbital Debris, April 7, 2011, http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1104/1104.1401.pdf, pgs 1-2, NG)

Space debris can be broadly classified into two categories: (i) large debris with dimension larger than 10 cm and (ii) small debris with dimension smaller than 10 cm. The smaller debris are more numerous and are difficult to detect and impossible to individually track. This makes them more dangerous than the fewer larger debris which can be tracked and hence avoided. In addition, there are solutions for larger debris, for example, NRL’s FREND device that can remove large objects from useful orbits and place them in graveyard orbits 1) . To the best of our knowledge there are no credible solutions for the small debris. Damage from even millimeter size debris can be dangerous. Fig. 1 shows examples of damage by small debris collision. The source of small debris is thought to be collision between large objects 2) , such as spent satellites, which can lead to a collisional cascade 3) . Perhaps a more ominous source of smaller debris is collision between large and small objects as we describe in the following. Since such collisions will be more frequent our focus is to develop a concept for eliminating the small orbital debris which can not be individually tracked to evade collision. 2. Small Debris Population The LEO debris population is primarily localized within a 50 degree inclination angle and mostly in the sun synchronous nearly circular orbits 4) . The distribution of larger trackable debris peaks around 800 km altitude. The smaller debris, although impossible to track individually, can be characterized statistically 5) and the resulting distribution is roughly similar to the tracked debris but peaks at higher (~ 1000 km) altitude. The lifetimes of debris increase with their ballistic coefficient, B , defined as the ratio of mass to area 6) . Debris with B ~ 3 − 5 kg/m 2 peak around 1000 km and their lifetime becomes 25 years or less below 900 km. Above 900 km the lifetimes can be centuries. Therefore, the task of small debris removal is essentially to reduce the debris orbit height from around 1100 km to below 900 km and then let nature take its course. Today there are about 900 active satellites and about 19,000 Earth-orbiting cataloged objects larger than 10 cm. However, there are countless smaller objects that can not be tracked individually. Unintentional (collision or explosion) or intentional (ASAT event) fragmentation of satellites increases the debris population significantly. For example, the 2007 Chinese ASAT test generated 2400 pieces of large debris and countless smaller ones in the popular sun synchronous orbit at 900 km altitude 7) . A similar increase of the debris population also resulted from the 2009 collision of the Iridium 33 satellite with a spent Russian satellite Kosmos-2251. These collisions are examples of high energy fragmentation where the energy dissipated is several hundreds if not thousands of MJ and the average velocity spread of the fragments could be several hundred m/s. Since the population of smaller debris ~ 10 cm size is at least an order of magnitude higher, their collision frequency with larger objects would correspondingly be an order of magnitude higher. However the energy in such collisions is typically less than 10 MJ

Orion project is cheapest - Using lasers to nudge debris out of orbit is a cheap methodGrossman in 11. (Science journalist, covers physics and astronomy, Wired science, NASA Considers Shooting Space Junk With Lasers, 3-15-2011, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/lasering-space-junk/. DT)

NASA scientists have suggested shooting space junk with lasers before. But earlier plans relied on military-class lasers that would either destroy an object altogether, or vaporize part of its surface and create little plasma plumes that would rocket the piece of litter away. Those lasers would be prohibitively expensive, the team says, not to mention make other space-faring nations nervous about what exactly that military-grade laser is pointing at. The laser to be used in the new system is the kind used for welding and cutting in car factories and other industrial processes. They’re commercially available for about $0.8 million. The rest of the system could cost between a few and a few tens of millions of dollars, depending on whether the researchers build it from scratch or modify an existing telescope, perhaps a telescope at the   Air Force Maui Optical Station  in Hawaii or at   Mt. Stromlo  in Australia. “This system solves technological problems, makes them cheaper, and makes it less of a threat that these will be used for nefarious things,” said space security expert Brian Weeden, a technical adviser for the Secure World Foundation who was not involved in the new study. “It’s certainly very interesting.”

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Orion Solvency (4/6)

The ORION laser is effective against metallic and nonmetallic debris depending on what is necessary to remove. Campbell, 2000 (Jonathan W., Colonel USAFR, Center for Strategy and Technology, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Using Lasers in Space, Laser Orbital Debris Removal and Asteroid Deflection, December 2000, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cst/csat20.pdf, NG)

Since orbital debris consists of many materials, a debris removal system must be designed with this in mind. The Orion study considered laboratory experiments that were conducted with representative materials and found useful models for the coupling of metals and nonmetals, as shown in Figure 1. The optimum intensity is higher for metals than for nonmetals, since energy tends to he conducted to the interior of the metal. At higher intensities, however, the coupling is higher for metals than for nonmetals because the onset of plasma formation above the optimum intensity for nonmetals occurs at lower intensities. 4 This system would he effective against both metallic and nonmetallic targets in space, and could be effective against materials that arc at higher orbital altitudes

Project Orion can clear out the dangerous space debris in only 2 years, and all space debris larger than 1 cm but with mass less than 100 kg in 4.Phipps et al. 96 (PhD at Stanford University in plasma physics, NSS, ORION: Clearing near-Earth space debris using a 20-kW, 530-nm, Earth-based, repetitively pulsed lasers, 1996, http://www.nss.org/resources/library/planetarydefense/1996-ORION-ClearingNearEarthSpaceDebrisUsingPulsedLaser-Phipps.pdf, AX)

A laser of just 20 kW average power and state-of-the-art detection capabilities could clear near-Earth space below 1000 km altitude of all space debris larger than 1 cm but less massive than 100 kg in about 4 years, and all debris in the threatening 1 – 20-cm size range in about 2 years of continuous operation. The ORION laser would be sited near the Equator at a high altitude location [e.g., the Uhuru site on Kilimanjaro], minimizing turbulence correction, conversion by stimulated Raman scattering, and absorption of the 530-nm wavelength laser beam. ORION is a special case of Laser Impulse Space Propulsion (LISP), studied extensively by Los Alamos and others over the past four years.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Orion Solvency (5/6)

Orion is most cost-effective - Using space-based solutions is impractical compared to a ground-based laser due to the high cost of sending objects to space.Phipps et al. in 96 (PhD at Stanford University in plasma physics, NSS, ORION: Clearing near-Earth space debris using a 20-kW, 530-nm, Earth-based, repetitively pulsed lasers, 1996, http://www.nss.org/resources/library/planetarydefense/1996-ORION-ClearingNearEarthSpaceDebrisUsingPulsedLaser-Phipps.pdf, AX)

The approach of Metzger, et al. is space-based, featuring a nuclear-powered spaceborne debris sweeper powering a neutral particle beam or a 10-kJ, 1-Hz krypton fluoride laser (λ = 248 nm). The advantage of this concept is that, in principle, the source can get closer to the debris object than a fixed base system, and that, assuming as we will that the object is spinning, the laser propagation vector can be directed precisely opposite to the momentum of the object for maximum effect. The disadvantages are several. In the first place, mass costs $10 – 20/g to put in low Earth orbit, an added cost that must be well justified compared to the $1/g typical cost of high-tech equipment on Earth. More important than launch cost are the added problems posed by alignment, operation, maintenance and refueling in space. We note that a multi-billion-dollar effort equivalent to placing the Hubble Telescope in orbit is needed to match the quality of optics already installed on Earth which have been augmented by adaptive optics systems. The latter are able to compensate optical distortion due to atmospheric turbulence using, e.g., a sodium “guide-star”, as will be described in Section 10 of this paper. Also, because of the 1000-km depth of the space debris band, an orbiting debris sweeper needs a range of action which turns out to be not dramatically different from that of its ground-based counterpart to be effective in a reasonable time. As regards debris detection, a space-based system discards a “free” advantage of the ground-based system in that, from the ground, interesting objects are all moving against a fixed background, which makes detection simple. In space, velocity discrimination must be used, leading to complicated schemes, e.g., involving 4-wave mixing. For debris mitigation, neutral particle beams were found by Metzger, et al. to require 10 times as much energy as laser beams and significantly greater energy storage. The authors do not list their assumptions about beam divergence, but the fact that they consider a maximum range of 10km is indicative of these assumptions. With a total mass of 6300 kg, the system of Metzger, et al. would cost about $125M just to place on station, a cost about twice what we estimate for the total installed cost of the ground-based system we propose

Using ORION, it only costs $330 to clear a piece of space debrisPhipps and Sinko 10 (PhD at Stanford University in plasma physics, Photonic Associates, ORION update, no date, http://photonicassociates.com/ORION_Update.pdf, 2010, AX)

Even though a 140kJ/pulse laser operating at 12 pulses per minute might is not yet within the state of the art, we believe it will be soon. The average power is much more reasonable than for the other combinations of parameters. Table 2 indicates a clear advantage for propelling polymer debris targets. The beam director diameter, set by the combination of nonlinear optical effects in the atmosphere and the achievement of the correct target fluence for maximum coupling, is significantly smaller than for the Table 2 case than for the other cases. Addressing only large debris objects was shown not to be the best strategy, based on published debris statistics, and it requires lasers which are even further beyond the state of the art. Using cost estimation methods reported in [3], we can estimate that the small objects can be removed at a cost of $330 each, including supplies and personnel, with system costs amortized over three years.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Orion Solvency (6/6)

Orion is the best - Laser tech is the best option for asteroid deflection. Phipps 10 (PhD at Stanford University in plasma physics, Photonic Associates, Planetary Defense, 2010, http://photonicassociates.com/ORION_Update.pdf, AX)

With adequate planning and a willingness to invest proportional to the potential cost to life on Earth, the laser alternative offers advantages to nuclear explosive deflection. These are the ability to deflect an epoch-ending NEO gradually and safely, the ability to project a calibrated, retargetable defensive capability at the speed of light, and avoidance of nuclear devices in space.

Orion Solves: NASA already considers it an option, and they’re cheap.KFC in 11(Published by MIT, NASA Studies Laser for Removing Space Junk, 3-14-9, http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26512/. DT)

Today, James Mason at NASA Ames Research Center near Palo Alto and a few buddies describe a much cheaper option. Their idea is to zap individual pieces of junk with a ground-based laser, thereby slowing them down so that they eventually de-orbit. Of course, laser removal isn't entirely new. In the 1990s, the US A ir Force studied the idea, thinking that a powerful enough laser could ablate an object, creating a force that could be used to de-orbit it. The trouble with this idea is that such a powerful laser has an obvious dual purpose, which is unlikely to please other space faring nations. So Mason and pals have studied the possibility of using a much less powerful system which uses the momentum of photons alone to decelerate the junk. Focused onto a piece of junk for an hour or two every day, they calculate that a 5 KW laser could do the trick and that such a device could tackle up to ten objects a day. That could help move junk away from potentially dangerous orbits and ultimately to de-orbit it entirely. In fact, Mason and co say that the system could reverse the Kessler syndrome, so that the rate of debris removal once again exceeds its rate of creation. They say their system could even be used for manoeuvring suitably-designed satellites, without the need for them to carry propellant. Such a system could be marketed as a commercial venture, thereby helping to pay for it. Not that it need be terribly expensive. Mason and co estimate that a test device could be knocked up for a million dollars, which would have to be shared by many spacefaring nations, to avoid the inevitable legal issues that using such a device would raise. Of course, the US (and obviously China), already have the technology to this kind of work, using their own antisatellite systems. Indeed, Mason and co say "it may be possible to perform a near-zero cost demonstration using existing capabilities such as those of the Starfire Optical Range at Kirtland AFB." It's only a matter of time before a piece of space junk causes serious havoc in orbit, by threatening a crewed mission, for example. There'll be plenty of interest in this kind of technology after such an incident. And then we'll be asking why we didn't invest in the technology when we had the chance to prevent this kind of disaster.

Project ORION solves – since the laser has a high energy per pulse it can remove small parts of the debris material to change the velocity towards the Earth’s atmosphere – free electron lasers fail.Wilder 10 (Benjamin, Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy, B.S., University of South Alabama, Naval Postgraduate School, Thesis for a Master of Science in Physics at the Naval Postgraduate School, Power Beaming, Orbital Debris Removal, And Other Space Applications Of A Ground Based Free Electron Laser, March 2010, http://dodreports.com/pdf/ada518696.pdf, SP)

NASA’s Project Orion sought to utilize a high-peak-power, ground-based laser to ablate small portions of the debris material in order to provide a change in velocity, or ∆v, that would lower the altitude of the orbit. As their moniker suggests, high-peak power lasers have a very high energy per pulse, which is sufficient to cause ablation, but their pulses are less frequent than an FEL’s pulses. This single, high-energy pulse is what allows for the ablation of material and subsequent ∆v. If an FEL were utilized for orbital debris removal, it would not have enough peak power to ablate the surface material of the debris. In contrast to other types of laser, an FEL achieves its high average power by generating frequent pulses with comparatively small amounts of energy per pulse. While NASA’s proposed laser for Project Orion generates 150 J per pulse, a 1 MW FEL will only produce about 10 mJ per pulse, but at ~106 times the pulse repetition frequency [53].

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Tungsten Solvency (1/4)

Tungsten cloud solves best – Creates drag to bring the space junk downDillow in 11 (Clay, Writer for popular science, Popular science, Space debris solution du jour: Launching a Cloud of Tungsten Dust Into Orbit, April 12, 2011, http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/fighting-orbital-space-debris-cloud-tungsten-dust, NU)

When it comes to solving the growing space junk problem, solutions range from catching it in giant nets to blasting it from orbit with lasers--and these are DARPA’s and NASA’s best plans, respectively. By contrast, the Naval Research Laboratory has a scheme that seems much more feasible, though fraught with negative consequences: using a cloud of tungsten dust to create atmospheric drag at orbital altitudes, deorbiting the thousands of pieces of tiny space junk whirling about the heavens. The idea is simple enough: at altitudes below about 560 miles, the drag of the atmosphere naturally decays orbits, causing smaller bits of debris to slowly lose their orbits over the course of a couple of decades. But above that limit small debris--the stuff smaller than 10 centimeters that is very hard to track--can stay up there for decades or even centuries, threatening to damage satellites and spacecraft. A researcher at the U.S. NRL suggests releasing a cloud of tungsten dust at about 680 miles up, creating a layer of particles that will completely shroud the planet. The particles themselves will be just 30 micrometers across, but because tungsten is nearly twice as dense as lead they will still add effective weight to any small debris they latch on to. This, the thinking goes, will drag small debris pieces down below that 560 mile marker over a decade or two, where natural forces will take over and the debris will burn up, scrubbing orbital space clean of small debris over the next 25 or 35 years. If you haven’t begun verbally objecting to this idea at this point, feel free to begin now. First of all, what effect is this tungsten cloud going to have on all of the equipment we don’t want to deorbit, like our functioning satellites? What about the delicate optics on our science satellites and the the solar panels that keep our communications satellites powered up? And, as Tech Review notes, might this tungsten layer obscure our view of the cosmos, reducing the power of our earth-based

Tungsten would not interfere with any current satellite or spacecraft missions, spacecraft tolerant by design, and impacts are miniscule.Ganguli, Crabtree, Rudkov, Chappie 4-7-11 (Gurudas, Christopher, Leonid, Scott, Plasma Physics Researcher at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C, Icarus Research Incorporation, Naval Center For Space Technology Naval Research Laboratory, Cornell University Library- Space Physics, A Concept For Elimination of Small Orbital Debris, April 7, 2011, http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1104/1104.1401.pdf, 4, NG)

7. System Risks Spacecraft are already designed to operate in the existing cosmic dust and orbital debris environment. The orbital debris remediation technique using tungsten dust described herein would involve higher flux than the current background, but mitigations are available. Certain aspects of spacecraft design are already dust impact tolerant by design. Dust grains of the size proposed by NRL will certainly not penetrate thermal blankets, spacecraft structure, or sensor baffles. Normally, earth observation satellites would point the sensors earthward and scientific satellites away from earth both nearly orthogonal to the satellite motion. Hence, the risk to satellite sensors associated with our small debris removal technique is minimal as the tungsten dust would approach in the local horizontal plane only. Solar arrays could also be degraded by dust impacts, but that effect can be mitigated by thicker cover glass. Recent laboratory tests indicate that solar cells remain unaffected by hypervelocity impact of a 100 μ m glass sphere 11) . The NRL concept involves deploying a tungsten dust layer of a limited thickness, perhaps 30 to 50 km. If necessary active spacecraft could be maneuvered above or below this band using onboard propulsion and avoid the artificial dust flux altogether. Finally, tungsten dust is no longer an issue to operational spacecraft below an altitude of about 600 km because once at that altitude, the tungsten dust orbital lifetime would be brief and any interaction time with operational spacecraft below 600 km would be minimal.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Tungsten Solvency (1/3)

Spreading the Tungsten in the atmosphere is possible with current technology and does not pose any ecological or human threat- tungsten microparticles burn up in low altitudesGanguli, Crabtree, Rudkov, Chappie 4-7-11 (Gurudas, Christopher, Leonid, Scott, Plasma Physics Researcher at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C, Icarus Research Incorporation, Naval Center For Space Technology Naval Research Laboratory, Cornell University Library- Space Physics, A Concept For Elimination of Small Orbital Debris, April 7, 2011, http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1104/1104.1401.pdf, pg 4, NG)

Based on the physics discussed above we envision releasing dust in quasi-circular orbits between 900 and 1100 km. The mass of dust required for remediation is a function of the ballistic coefficient of the orbital debris, the desired altitude reduction of the debris, and the desired altitude reduction rate. The dimension and material density of the dust grains will be optimized so that it can sustain the ‘snow plow’ effect. The dust dimension should also be small enough to be harmless to active satellite components and their orbits. The period of induced drag on targeted small debris is purposely designed to be long (years) so that the requirement for total dust mass carried to orbit is lower. In a series of releases in quasicircular polar orbit, the dust cloud will spread and form a thin shell slowly spreading in azimuth with large meridianal velocity in both directions. At any given point in this shell, half of the dust mass will be in orbit oppositely directed to the targeted debris population. The interaction of dust with debris in this shell will lower the debris altitude. The dust layer itself will descend in altitude over time and in the process lower the altitude of all targeted debris from 1100 to 900 km below which the orbital lifetime of the small debris is naturally 25 years or less. Along with the debris, the injected dust will ultimately burn up in the earth’s atmosphere at lower altitudes. The technique described essentially just requires the transportation of “dumb mass” ( micron-sized tungsten dust) to polar orbit , No new technology development is necessary . The dust may be delivered as a secondary payload utilizing the excess capacity available in many launches going to sun synchronous orbit or as a separate dedicated dust dispensing satellite.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Tungsten Solvency (2/3)

Only 20-50 micrometer particles of tungsten is necessary to remove small pieces of debris, in order to get rid of the debris from 1100 km-lower is 20 tons which can be Ganguli, Crabtree, Rudkov, Chappie 4-7-11 (Gurudas, Christopher, Leonid, Scott, Plasma Physics Researcher at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C, Icarus Research Incorporation, Naval Center For Space Technology Naval Research Laboratory, Cornell University Library- Space Physics, A Concept For Elimination of Small Orbital Debris, April 7, 2011, http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1104/1104.1401.pdf, pgs 3-4, NG)

The natural atmospheric drag is included in the second term in the right hand side (RHS) of Eq. (1) through atmospheric density n0 and mass m0 . At higher altitudes of interest, e.g., 900 – 1100 km where small debris population is high, the atmospheric drag on the debris is negligible and hence their orbital lifetime is very long. Their lifetime can be shortened to the extent desired by artificially enhancing the drag through the injection of dust, represented in the first term in RHS of Eq. (1). However the atmospheric drag on 20 – 50 μ m diameter dust grains is not negligible and hence the dust orbit will naturally decay. The dust orbit decay rate is dependent on the dust grain size and mass density and hence, to a certain extent, can be controlled. We can exploit this by injecting a narrow dust layer of width ΔR which is much smaller than the altitude interval δ R to be cleared (see Fig. 2) and synchronizing the rate of descent of the debris and the dust. As the dust descends in altitude due to the natural atmospheric drag, it ‘snow plows’ the small debris until a low enough altitude is reached below which the natural drag is strong enough to force reentry of the debris. Since Δ << R δ R the volume of dust is much less than the volume of the interval to be cleared. Hence, the dust mass to be transported to orbit can be kept at a minimum. In addition, small ΔR (30 – 50 km) allows for the option to maneuver active satellites to avoid contact with the injected dust if it is deemed to be necessary. Consider the case in which the debris orbit altitude is to be lowered by δ R below which the natural drag is sufficient to reduce the lifetime of the debris to a desired interval. Neglecting the second term it can be shown from Eq. (1) that the total dust mass Md necessary for this is, ~ 8 d R R M B NC δ κ Δ , (2) where N is the number of debris revolutions in the dust, which is a measure of dust/debris interaction time. In LEO the period of the debris revolution is about 90 min which implies that there are about 5200 revolutions a year. C ~ (0.5 - 1) is a correction factor due to the orbital geometry and assumed to be ~ 1 in the following. In deriving (2) we have used Δ = v/ v / 2 δ R R . From Eq. (2) Md necessary to lower the orbit heights of all debris from 1100 km to below 900 km in 10 years by releasing 30 B ≤ 5 μ m diameter tungsten dust in a layer of width km at 1100 km is estimated to be 20 tons . The dust may be injected in one or several installments over a period of several years. For this estimate we conservatively assumed . This value is likely to be larger which implies that the estimate of the dust mass is likely to be lower. Further research is necessary to determine a more accurate value of . R ~ 30 κ κ Δ = 4 34 The length of time required to de-orbit the small debris is influenced by how long we can maintain the dust in orbit . In the near-earth plasma environment the dust grains acquire charges and respond to the electromagnetic forces in addition to gravity, drag, and radiation pressure depending on its size and composition. Orbit calculations using silicon and tungsten dust of a variety of sizes from 1-100 μ m indicate that the orbital lifetime of dust depends on its size and density. The on/off radiation pressure due to dust orbit in sunlight and in earth shadow introduces a spatial spread to its Keplerian orbit. These calculations suggest that 20 - 50 μ m tungsten dust is ideally suited for small debris eliminatio n. The lifetime of 30 μ m diameter tungsten dust grains released at an altitude of 1100 km with inclination of 80 - 90 degrees is about 15 years.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Tungsten Solvency (3/3)

Tungsten cleans small debris - Large debris cleanup is unimportant and happening in the squo, small debris is almost impossible to track and can cause enormous problemsGanguli, Crabtree, Rudkov, Chappie 4-7-11 (Gurudas, Christopher, Leonid, Scott, Plasma Physics Researcher at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C, Icarus Research Incorporation, Naval Center For Space Technology Naval Research Laboratory, Cornell University Library- Space Physics, A Concept For Elimination of Small Orbital Debris, April 7, 2011, http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1104/1104.1401.pdf, pgs 1-2, NG)

Space debris can be broadly classified into two categories: (i) large debris with dimension larger than 10 cm and (ii) small debris with dimension smaller than 10 cm. The smaller debris are more numerous and are difficult to detect and impossible to individually track. This makes them more dangerous than the fewer larger debris which can be tracked and hence avoided. In addition, there are solutions for larger debris, for example, NRL’s FREND device that can remove large objects from useful orbits and place them in graveyard orbits 1) . To the best of our knowledge there are no credible solutions for the small debris. Damage from even millimeter size debris can be dangerous. Fig. 1 shows examples of damage by small debris collision. The source of small debris is thought to be collision between large objects 2) , such as spent satellites, which can lead to a collisional cascade 3) . Perhaps a more ominous source of smaller debris is collision between large and small objects as we describe in the following. Since such collisions will be more frequent our focus is to develop a concept for eliminating the small orbital debris which can not be individually tracked to evade collision. 2. Small Debris Population The LEO debris population is primarily localized within a 50 degree inclination angle and mostly in the sun synchronous nearly circular orbits 4) . The distribution of larger trackable debris peaks around 800 km altitude. The smaller debris, although impossible to track individually, can be characterized statistically 5) and the resulting distribution is roughly similar to the tracked debris but peaks at higher (~ 1000 km) altitude. The lifetimes of debris increase with their ballistic coefficient, B , defined as the ratio of mass to area 6) . Debris with B ~ 3 − 5 kg/m 2 peak around 1000 km and their lifetime becomes 25 years or less below 900 km. Above 900 km the lifetimes can be centuries. Therefore, the task of small debris removal is essentially to reduce the debris orbit height from around 1100 km to below 900 km and then let nature take its course. Today there are about 900 active satellites and about 19,000 Earth-orbiting cataloged objects larger than 10 cm. However, there are countless smaller objects that can not be tracked individually. Unintentional (collision or explosion) or intentional (ASAT event) fragmentation of satellites increases the debris population significantly. For example, the 2007 Chinese ASAT test generated 2400 pieces of large debris and countless smaller ones in the popular sun synchronous orbit at 900 km altitude 7) . A similar increase of the debris population also resulted from the 2009 collision of the Iridium 33 satellite with a spent Russian satellite Kosmos-2251. These collisions are examples of high energy fragmentation where the energy dissipated is several hundreds if not thousands of MJ and the average velocity spread of the fragments could be several hundred m/s. Since the population of smaller debris ~ 10 cm size is at least an order of magnitude higher, their collision frequency with larger objects would correspondingly be an order of magnitude higher. However the energy in such collisions is typically less than 10 MJ

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Catcher’s Mitt Solvency

Catcher’s Mitt technology solves – DARPA has the tech to solve.Dilliow in 10 (Clay, Writer for popular science, Popular science, DARPA’s Giant Space Junk Net Could Remove Almost All Debris August 16, 2010, http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-08/darpas-space-junk-remover-will-net-orbiting-debris-leo, NU)DARPA has a thing for butterfly tech. Last week it was sensors based on butterfly wings. This week, it's a space junk capturing vehicle armed with 200 nets that gathers space garbage, much as a lepidopterist would net butterflies for a specimen collection. The technology was presented on Friday at the annual Space Elevator conference. The Electrodynamic Debris Eliminator, or EDDE, is the brainchild of engineers at Star Inc. and ostensibly the DARPA backers that are funding its development. In practice, EDDE would zip around low earth orbit snaring bits of space garbage in its many nets where they cannot be a menace to other orbiting spacecraft. Star's CEO estimates that over seven years, 12 EDDE craft could clean up all 2,465 objects over 4.5 pounds that are currently being tracked through LEO.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

EDDE Solvency (1/3)

The EDDE system solves – Full cleanup by 2017Dilliow in 10 (Clay, Writer for popular science, Popular science, DARPA’s Giant Space Junk Net Could Remove Almost All Debris August 16, 2010, http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-08/darpas-space-junk-remover-will-net-orbiting-debris-leo, NU)

Once EDDE has a piece of space junk cornered, it can either hurl it into the South Pacific where it has little chance of doing any harm, or put it on a trajectory to burn up during re-entry. Or, Star insists, the pieces of junk could be recycled right there in space to create raw materials for the construction of future orbiting space stations or satellites. It sounds pretty out there, but Star has already begun testing the tech and should conduct a test flight in 2013. If that succeeds, EDDEs could begin a full cleanup operation in LEO by 2017.

EDDE vehicle solves. Pearson et.al-10(Jerome Pearson, Ohio Eta ’61, is president of STAR, Inc business that has developed concepts for DOD and NASA; invented the Earth and lunar space elevators, developed multi-winglets for lowered aircraft drag, published engineering solutions to space debris, and conceived spacecraft EDDE., he was an engineer at NASA Langley and Ames research centers and a branch chief for the Air Force Research Laboratory, ACTIVE DEBRIS REMOVAL: EDDE, THE ELECTRODYNAMIC DEBRIS ELIMINATOR, 2010, http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/EDDE_IAC_Final_Paper.pdf, rn)

The most near-term and technically advanced method presented was a roving space vehicle that can capture LEO debris objects in nets and drag them down safely out of the space lanes. EDDE, the ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator, is the first space vehicle that can remove all the large debris from LEO at reasonable cost4. EDDE is a new kind of space vehicle5. It is not a rocket that accelerates a payload by throwing propellant mass in the opposite direction. EDDE is an electric motor/generator in space. It maneuvers by reacting against the Earth’s magnetic field, and uses no propellant. This means that it is not limited by the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. It can produce enormous delta-Vs of hundreds of km/sec over its operational lifetime. An EDDE vehicle equipped with solar panels for power and expendable capture nets could safely remove from orbit its own mass in debris each day on average. The principle of operation of an EDDE vehicle is shown in Figure 2.

EDDE is the best - Its lightweight and propellantless mechanism make EDDE vehicles both cost effective and energy efficient. Pearson et.al-10(Jerome Pearson, Ohio Eta ’61, is president of STAR, Inc business that has developed concepts for DOD and NASA; invented the Earth and lunar space elevators, developed multi-winglets for lowered aircraft drag, published engineering solutions to space debris, and conceived spacecraft EDDE., he was an engineer at NASA Langley and Ames research centers and a branch chief for the Air Force Research Laboratory, ACTIVE DEBRIS REMOVAL: EDDE, THE ELECTRODYNAMIC DEBRIS ELIMINATOR, 2010, http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/EDDE_IAC_Final_Paper.pdf, rn)

These rates are possible over altitudes of about 300 km to 1000 km, and are reduced at higher altitudes by lower magnetic field strength and plasma density. A bare EDDE vehicle without a payload could go from the International Space Station 51.6 inclination orbit to 90 -inclination polar orbit in about 3 weeks , a delta- V of nearly 5 km/sec. Using conventional rockets for space debris removal is extremely difficult. To launch a satellite into low Earth orbit, it must be given a velocity of 7 or 8 km/sec. With chemical propellants, even our best launch vehicles put only about 4% of the total launch mass into orbit. But to change the orbit of a satellite already in orbit can require even higher velocities. For example, to move a satellite from equatorial to polar orbit takes 1.4 times the orbital velocity, or about 10-11 km/sec. It would actually be easier to launch another satellite from the ground than to make this orbit change! Launching a chemical rocket from the ground to remove the debris, each piece in its own orbit, would be extremely expensive. The enormous advantage that the propellantless EDDE vehicle has over conventional rockets is shown in Table II, which compares different propulsion systems in performing the task of removing the 2465 objects in LEO weighing over 2 kg. Propulsion System Isp, sec Number of Vehicles Total Mass in Orbit Bipropellant 300 900 800 tons NH3 Arcjet 800 300 250 tons Ion Rocket 3,000 120 65 tons VASIMR 10,000 30 25 tons EDDE --- 12 1 ton Table II: Propulsion System Requirements for Debris Removal A typical bipropellant chemical rocket might have specific impulse of 300 seconds, and the table shows that this task would require 900 vehicles weighing 800 tons. Higher-Isp systems include arc jets, ion rockets, and the recently-tested Variable Specific Impulse Magneto-plasma Rocket (VASIMR) championed by former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz of Ad Astra11. These systems also require higher power. But even VASIMR would require 25 tons in orbit to remove all the debris, more than 20 times the mass of 12 EDDEs, a little over 1 ton. Twelve EDDEs could remove all 2465.

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EDDE Solvency (2/3)

EDDE is affordable and effective at removing space debris. Pearson et.al 10(Jerome Pearson, Ohio Eta ’61, is president of STAR, Inc., a small business in Mount Pleasant, SC, that has developed aircraft, spacecraft, and space-tether concepts for DOD and NASA. He invented the Earth and lunar space elevators, developed multi-winglets for lowered aircraft drag, published engineering solutions to global warming and space debris, and conceived the propellantless electrodynamic spacecraft EDDE. Before founding his firm, he was an engineer at NASA Langley and Ames research centers and a branch chief for the Air Force Research Laboratory. He has degrees in engineering and geology and is author of nearly 100 technical publications, including invited articles for Encyclopaedia Britannica and New Scientist. An associate fellow of AIAA, a fellow of the BIS, and a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, ACTIVE DEBRIS REMOVAL: EDDE, THE ELECTRODYNAMIC DEBRIS ELIMINATOR, 2010, http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/EDDE_IAC_Final_Paper.pdf, rn)

The ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator (EDDE) is a low-cost solution for LEO space debris removal. EDDE can affordably remove nearly all the 2,465 objects of more than 2 kg that are now in 500-2000 km orbits. That is more than 99% of the total mass, collision area, and debris-generation potential in LEO. EDDE is a propellantless vehicle that reacts against the Earth's magnetic field. EDDE can climb about 200 km/day and change orbit plane at 1.5/day, even in polar orbit. No other electric vehicle can match these rates, much less sustain them for years. After catching and releasing one object, EDDE can climb and torque its orbit to reach another object within days, while actively avoiding other catalogued objects. Binocular imaging allows accurate relative orbit determination from a distance. Capture uses lightweight expendable nets and real-time man-in-the-loop control. After capture, EDDE drags debris down and releases it and the net into a short-lived orbit safely below ISS, or can take it to a storage/recycling facility. EDDE can also sling debris into controlled reentry, or can include an adjustable drag device with the net before release, to allow later adjustment of payload reentry location. A dozen 100-kg EDDE vehicles could remove nearly all 2166 tons of LEO orbital debris in 7 years. EDDE enables and justifies a shift in focus, from simply reducing the rate of debris growth to active wholesale removal of all large debris objects in LEO.

EDDE vehicle substantial better than removal of debris by rockets-shorter time frame, more efficient, and less risky. Pearson et.al-10(Jerome Pearson, Ohio Eta ’61, is president of STAR, Inc business that has developed concepts for DOD and NASA; invented the Earth and lunar space elevators, developed multi-winglets for lowered aircraft drag, published engineering solutions to space debris, and conceived spacecraft EDDE., he was an engineer at NASA Langley and Ames research centers and a branch chief for the Air Force Research Laboratory, ACTIVE DEBRIS REMOVAL: EDDE, THE ELECTRODYNAMIC DEBRIS ELIMINATOR, 2010, http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/EDDE_IAC_Final_Paper.pdf, rn)

There are other methods for debris removal using electrodynamic tethers, but they are far less effective and far more risky than EDDE. It has been suggested that rockets could be used in a single orbit inclination to attach drag devices such as balloons or passive electrodynamic tethers to drag the debris down. Debris removal using chemical rockets will be much more expensive by itself, but there is also another problem. These devices do not actively control the debris for collision avoidance during deorbit, have much larger collision cross-sections than the debris, and add to the collision risk during their longer de-orbit times. Using passive electrodynamic tethers, for example, would require having multikilometer tethers on hundreds of objects over years as they slowly spiral down to re-entry. This would result in a huge additional collision risk, especially to ISS. By contrast, EDDE removes debris objects quickly, each object within days, and actively avoids all tracked objects while dragging debris to disposal.

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EDDE Solvency (3/3)

EDDE vehicle key to debris removal, weather and sun monitoring, and the removal and delivery of satellites. Pearson et.al-10(Jerome Pearson, Ohio Eta ’61, is president of STAR, Inc business that has developed concepts for DOD and NASA; invented the Earth and lunar space elevators, developed multi-winglets for lowered aircraft drag, published engineering solutions to space debris, and conceived spacecraft EDDE., he was an engineer at NASA Langley and Ames research centers and a branch chief for the Air Force Research Laboratory, ACTIVE DEBRIS REMOVAL: EDDE, THE ELECTRODYNAMIC DEBRIS ELIMINATOR, 2010, http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/EDDE_IAC_Final_Paper.pdf, rn)

EDDE can be used for a variety of useful purposes other than debris removal. To limit the dangers from re-entry, EDDE can deliver debris objects to a space processing facility that uses the aluminum in large upper stages as raw material for space processing and space manufacturing. EDDE can deliver payloads to custom orbits, deliver fuel to operational satellites, deliver service modules to satellites, move satellites to new orbits, inspect failed satellites, and monitor space weather all over LEO. Multiple EDDE vehicles in different orbits could provide real-time maps of the ionosphere, keeping track of “space weather,” which affects satellite communication, and could also record the effects of solar flares and proton events on the Sun, which are dangerous to satellites and crew. Perhaps more importantly, after there is enough confidence in EDDE operations including capture, EDDE can deliver aged or failed satellites to ISS for repair, even from sun-synch orbit. This will want to use capture without nets, probably using the two-stage capture concept shown on page 23 of ref. 13. After capture, EDDE needs to torque the orbit plane to bring the satellite to ISS and release it. During the transfer, replacement parts can be sent to ISS. After delivery and repair, EDDE can take the satellite back to its original orbit or a new one, for continued operation. There have been billion-dollar satellites that failed soon after launch. Such on-orbit repair operations could be a very valuable part of full-scale ISS operations.

Empirically proven by Japan, robotic space stations like the US’s EDDE can effectively remove space debris. Marks 11 (Paul Marks, writer and senior technological correspondent at New Scientist, New Scientist, Clearing the Heavens, One Piece at a Time, 2/12/10, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=11&sid=9378bcf5-88d5-490c-8277-286a2cfb05f5%40sessionmgr10&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=58606895, rn)

As the cloud of space junk shrouding the Earth grows ever denser, the most sophisticated garbage collectors of all time are taking shape IN SEPTEMBER 2009 a giant robotic arm beneath the International Space Station plucked an uncrewed Japanese cargo ship from the void of space. It was the first time this spectacular capture mechanism had been tried, but this robotic grab was no one-off. On 27 January this year, the Japanese space agency, JAXA, was involved again with HTV2, its second cargo craft (pictured). The feats show that "robotic capture" can be a reliable option in orbit. Their success was critical for engineers developing technologies designed to clear space debris, because they need related orbital snatch-and-grab technology to drag defunct satellites to a lower orbit to burn up on re-entry. This matters because there are now 22,000 human-made objects larger than 10 centimetres across in orbit and half a million larger than 1 centimetre -- and all pose a grave risk to space missions. More debris is on its way. Hugh Lewis, a space scientist at the University of Southampton in the UK, has calculated that the debris population in low Earth orbit will increase by at least 33 per cent over the next two centuries. Even if space agencies never launched another rocket, the cloud of debris will continue to grow as pieces of space junk crash into one another. There are a number of ideas about how best to go about clearing up this mess. At Star Technology and Research (STR) in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Jerome Pearson proposes a scheme in which a spacecraft comprising a conducting-cable tether would orbit Earth, grabbing debris and casting it into lower orbits (see diagram, far right). Studded with solar arrays that generate electric current in the cable, STR's Electro Dynamic Debris Eliminator (EDDE) slowly rotates and uses the current's interaction with Earth's magnetic field to change its orbit. EDDE is manoeuvred until it matches orbits with the target, and rotates so it either robotically grabs the junk or ensnares it in a net. The debris can then be slung into a lower, re-entry orbit or EDDE can descend and then release it.

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Space Vacuum Solvency

Using a space vacuum solvesKiger 09 (co-author of two books, “Poplorica: A Popular History of the Fads, Mavericks, Inventions and Lore that Shaped Modern America," and “Oops: 20 Life Lessons From the Fiascoes That Shaped America.”, Science Good Ideas, A Space Debris Dustbuster?, March 27, 2009, http://blogs.discovery.com/good_idea/2009/03/a-space-debris-dustbuster.html, MS)

What if NASA launched a spacecraft specially designed not for research or space exploration, but to pick up the increasing amount of trash accumulating in orbit and increasingly endangering satellites and astronauts? The spacecraft would be the metaphorical equivalent of a gigantic Dustbuster -- except, that, of course, an actual vacuum sweeper wouldn’t do much good in the vacuum of space, so the device instead would use lasers to redirect pieces of orbital junk into its path and then deploy a powerful electromagnet to suction them up. The space trash would be gathered into the vehicle’s compartment, and then transported back to Earth for recycling or disposal in landfills. Such a garbage-collecting spacecraft—or rather, a fleet of them—might be able to eliminate what is turning into a huge, potentially catastrophic problem for our spacefaring civilization. A space debris Dustbuster would also help establish a new ethic of off-world environmentalism for the exploration and commercial use of space. It would help make clear that we don’t regard orbital space, the Moon, and other planets merely as natural resources to be exploited—or trashed, depending upon human convenience or whim. Instead, we would take responsibility for cleaning up our own mess, and hopefully do a better job of it than we’ve done on

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Sub-Orbital Payload Solvency

The aff can solve cheaply – studies show that a sub orbital payload can be used to reduce space debris. Hollopeter no date (James E., Director of Technology Development at GIT Satellite Communications, The X-Journals [a blog exploring revolutionary new technologies], Development of a ballistic orbital debris removal system, http://x-journals.com/2009/development-of-a-ballistic-orbital-debris-removal-system/, SP)GIT’s proposal is to attack the problem using a sub-orbital approach that cannot add to the orbital junk problem. Based on studies done under the Space Defense Initiative in the ‘80’s and on previous anti-satellite studies, GIT proposes a sub-orbital payload lofted to the appropriate altitude that could clear or reduce existing debris from selected areas of low earth orbit. By using a ballistic launch profile, there is no chance of adding to the existing debris problem. The payload would re-enter at the end of its mission, as well as all of its lower propulsive stages. There have been many suggestions to orbit a vehicle to collect debris and then de-orbit the debris using onboard propulsion systems. This is a very expensive approach. It would require all the associated ground control systems that are needed for any orbital missions today. By using a sub-orbital launch profile and existing sounding rockets in use today, a small ground based infrastructure, which presently exists could easily handle the launch load. There are many launch sites all over the world to support this type of mission. Since this debris problem exists for all space faring nations, the task could be shared among all users. Payload: Many payloads have been suggested to de-orbit the space debris. Most collect the debris and then de-orbit, while others such as tethers, would slowly lower the orbits until atmospheric drag takes over to de-orbit the debris. GIT’s approach is to use water, H2O, as the passive payload. It has the highest volumetric efficiency in the payload space. It can easily and predictably be deployed and has significant mass that will be used to reduce the debris orbital momentum. The payload would be launched retrograde to the target debris orbits. The resulting collisions would easily reduce the velocity of the smaller debris. The dispersion pattern of the water in space could be easily adjusted to accommodate the required velocity reduction for the target debris. Widely dispersed for very small objects of interest or narrowly dispersed for a focused collision of larger objects.

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Electro Dynamic Tether System Solvency

Using electro-dynamic tethers solves – preliminary experiments show that with high thrust capacity 42 out of 42 large debris pieces can be collected per year.Barbee et. al 11 (Brent William, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, with Elfego Pinon III, Emergent Space Technologies, Inc., Kenn Gold, Emergent Space Technologies, Inc., David Gaylor, Emergent Space Technologies, Inc., and Salvatore Alfano, Center for Space Standards and Innovation, Aerospace Conference 2011 IEEE, Design of spacecraft missions to remove multiple orbital debris objects, March 2011, http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5747303&tag=1, SP)

The set of 42 debris pieces defined previously was subjected to multi-target rendezvous trajectory analysis via the Series Method algorithm just described. This yielded an array of required total spacecraft launch masses as a function of the number of debris pieces visited and the specific impulse of the debris removal spacecrafts thruster. These required launch masses were then compared to the published capabilities of existing launch vehicles to assess the feasibility of removing various quantities of debris. The orbits of the 42 debris pieces were propagated using two body dynamics and making the deliberate approximation of treating the two-line elements as osculating elements just to give a sense of the debris piece orbits under consideration. A plot showing these orbits is presented in Figure 5. It is clear that these orbits mostly occupy different planes. This is because while they all have similar inclination angles (between 80.5° and 82°), they all have different right ascen sions of the ascending node. The differences between their orbit planes will clearly have a strong impact on the � V re quired to travel between them. It would be fortuitous if large groups of debris pieces tended to reside in nearly similar orbit planes, but natural orbit perturbations tend to preclude this, particularly in LEO. Figure 6 presents the relationship between the semimajor axes and eccentricities of the debris piece orbits. All of the debris pieces have similar semimajor axes and eccentricities, except for a few with slightly higher, but still small, eccentricities. Most of the orbits are not far from circular and have an alti tude near 845 km. Figure 7 makes clear the nature of the debris piece orbit planes suggested by Figure 5; all the debris pieces have an inclination angle near 81 ° but have different right ascensions, clustered mostly between 210° and 310°. W hile the natural nodal drift caused by J2 might be exploited in the design of multi-target rendezvous trajectories, we did not have the resources to pursue that idea in this study and have relegated it to future work. Table 4 presents the launch mass capabilities of various launch vehicles in the Delta series of rockets to a circular orbit of 845 km altitude at 81.2° inclination as this corresponds to the first debris piece in the itinerary identified by applying the Series Method. T hese launch vehicle performance data are approximate and were derived from the Kennedy Space Cen ter (KSC) NASA Launch Services Programs Launch Vehicle Performance Web Site (http://elvperf.ksc.nasa. gov / e 1 vMap I). Table 4 includes several variants of the Delta II and Delta IV launch vehicles. T he Series Method algorithm was executed on the 42 debris pieces using Lambert targeting to compute the rendezvous trajectories between debris pieces. The algorithm was set to construct an itinerary for visiting 32 of the debris pieces and to try each of the 42 pieces as the first target, selecting the choice of first target that served to minimize the total � V. The total � V computed for the rendezvous sequence for 32 target objects was approximately 12 km/s, which is substan tial, and was driven, as predicted, by the plane changes re quired to travel between the debris pieces. The total time re quired for the rendezvous sequence for 32 debris pieces was 260 days and includes some stay time at each debris piece for terminal rendezvous, proximity operations, capture, tether at tachment, release, and departure (though the � V associated with these activities was not computed). The trajectory design results were then subjected to a post processing step in which the total required launch mass was computed as a function of the spacecraft dry mass, which is (continued) a function of the number of debris pieces to visit as specified in (1), and the spacecraft thruster specific impulse. Six repre sentative values of specific impulse were selected: 200, 300, 450, 1, 600, 2, 200, and 3, 000 seconds. The values of 200 and 300 seconds serve to bound the typical performance of high-thrust conventional propulsion systems while 450 sec onds represents the upper bound on conventional propulsion. The values of 1, 600,2, 200, and 3, 000 seconds serve to rep resent low, medium, and high performance low-thrust propul sion systems, respectively. While no low-thrust trajectory de sign was actually performed in this study, the total � V re quirements will generally be similar (total � V for low-thrust trajectories does tend to be somewhat higher than for ballistic trajectories due to kinematic inefficiencies) to what we com puted for the impulsive maneuver ballistic trajectories and so utilizing the low-thrust propulsion system performance pa rameters in this study sheds light on how low-thrust tech nology might aid the debris removal effort. However, it is worth noting that the required flight times for the low-thrust trajectories would tend to be substantially longer than what we computed here for the high-thrust trajectories. Table 5 presents the post-

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processing results in terms of re quired launch mass to rendezvous with each of 5 to 32 de bris pieces using spacecraft thruster specific impulses rang ing from 200 to 3, 000 seconds. Table 5 is color-coded to indicate which combinations of number of debris pieces and thruster specific impulse can be handled by particular groups of launch vehicles. Some solutions can be handled by ei ther the smaller Delta II rockets or the larger Delta IV rockets (colored green in the table), some only by the larger Delta IV rockets (colored yellow in the table), and some solutions are not possible even with the largest rocket, the Delta IV Heavy (colored red in the table). As described previously, the dry mass is a direct function of the number of objects to be vis ited as this affects the number of EDTs required for a given mission. The results shown in Table 5 are presented in a different way in Table 6, showing how many debris pieces can be de-orbited in less than a year via EDTs for each combination of launch vehicle and thruster. These results are fairly promising; even the least capable launch vehicle and thruster are capable of de-orbiting 6 pieces of debris. The smallest of the Delta IV series of launch vehicles is capable of de-orbiting 11 pieces of debris even with the least capable thruster. The largest (and most expensive) launch vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy, is ca pable of de-orbiting 20 pieces of debris, with the spacecraft using a moderately capable conventional thruster. Note that increasing the specific impulse, as would be the case if low thrust spacecraft propulsion was used, shows that it might be possible to de-orbit all 42 pieces of debris when used with one of the Delta IV launch vehicles (not necessarily the Delta IV Heavy). Detailed low-thrust trajectory design needs to be performed to verify this result and determine how much mis sion time would be required, but even the preliminary results obtained here are profound.

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Terminator Tape Solvency

Terminator Tape solves – it creates a box attached to any size satellite which deorbits decommissioned satellites to prevent future collisions.Hoyt et. al 9 (Robert P., President, Chief Scientist, and CEO of Tethers Unlimited Inc., Ian M. Barnes, Lead Engineer, Nestor R. Voronka, Chief Technologist, Jeffrey T. Slostad, Chief Engineer, AIAA SPACE 2009 Conference & Exposition, The Terminator Tape™ : A Cost-Effective De-Orbit Module for End-of-Life Disposal of LEO Satellites, September 16 2009, http://www.tethers.com/papers/TermTapeSpace2009.pdf, SP)To provide a significantly more cost-effective means for satellite operators to comply with the 25-year post-mission orbital lifetime restriction, Tethers Unlimited is developing a lightweight de-orbit module called the “Terminator Tape”. The Terminator Tape Deorbit Module is, essentially, a small, flat box that bolts onto any side of a spacecraft during pre-launch integration. At the completion of the spacecraft’s mission, the spacecraft will activate the module with a simple pyro signal. The module will then deploy a several-hundred meter length of thin conducting tape. Regardless of what direction the tape is initially deployed in, gravity gradient forces will (eventually) orient the tape along the local vertical direction, either above or below the spacecraft. This tape will not only significantly increase the aerodynamic drag experienced by the system, reducing its ballistic coefficient, but will also generate electrodynamic drag forces through passive interactions with the Earth’s magnetic field and conducting ionospheric plasma. With proper selection of tape length, width, and conductivity, the enhanced aerodynamic drag and passive electrodynamic drag will be sufficient to de-orbit the satellite from orbits up to 900 km within 25 years. The Terminator Tape technology is highly scalable to accommodate different satellite sizes. Tethers Unlimited is currently developing two Terminator Tape modules, one sized for 180-kg ESPA-secondary-payload class satellites, and the other sized for 1-5 kg CubeSats and other pico- and nano-satellites. Aerodynamic Drag Enhancement Once the gravity gradient forces orient the tape roughly along the local vertical direction, the tape will increase the system’s aerodynamic drag cross section by an amount approximately equal to where the factor of 2/π results from the assumption that the tape either has some twist along its length, or that the system rotates around the tape’s long axis. Passive Electrodynamic Drag The principal of passive electrodynamic drag generation by the Terminator Tape is illustrated in Figure 2. The orbital motion of the conducting tape across the Earth’s magnetic field will induce a voltage along the tape, equal to ere V is the induced voltage, v is the orbital velocity of the system, L is the vector from one end of the tape to the other, and B is the geomagnetic field vector. In a direct orbit, this voltage will bias the top of the tape positive relative to the ambient environment, and the bottom of the tape negative. This voltage bias will enable the top portion of the conducting tape to collect electrons from the ionospheric plasma, and the bottom portion of the tape will collect ions, resulting in a small but significant flow of current up the tape. Note that this ‘passive’ current collection works regardless of whether the tape is deployed above or below the host spacecraft, and so the Terminator Tape does not require specific placement on the spacecraft or deployment in a particular direction.This current exchange with the conducting plasma will result in a flow of current up the tape, and this current will interact back with the Earth’s magnetic field to induce a Lorentz force that will oppose the orbital motion of the spacecraft, lowering its orbit: where the integral is performed along the length of the tape to account for variations in the current density along the tape. Because ions are heavier and thus much less mobile than electrons, most of the length of the tape will be collecting ions, (continued) balanced by a short electron-collecting length at the top of the tape. The collection of electron and ion currents by the biased tape of width w can be approximated using the Orbit Motion Limit theory, where ∆V is the voltage difference between the metalized film and the local plasma potential, me and mi are the electron and ion masses, and n∞ is the local plasma density. At an altitude of 700 km, where the plasma density is on the order of 1.2x10 11 m -3 at local noon, a 250 m long, 0.28 m wide Terminator Tape will collect an ion current density of approximately 68 µA/m over most of its length, resulting in peak currents of approximately 10 mA. While this is a small current, it will result in a drag force of approximately 15 µN. Thus at 700 km altitude, the passive electrodynamic drag will roughly double the net drag on the tape. Because the ionospheric plasma density drops more slowly with altitude than the neutral density, above about 700 km altitude the electrodynamic drag will exceed the neutral density drag. Thus the Terminator Tape module will provide significantly lower deorbit times than aerodynamicdrag-only systems, thereby dramatically increasing the altitude range over which satellites can meet the 25-year orbital lifetime requirement.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Terminator Tape Solvency

The Terminator Tape can uniquely deorbit large devices while simultaneously reducing the probability that they will collide during de-orbit.Hoyt et. al 9 (Robert P., President, Chief Scientist, and CEO of Tethers Unlimited Inc., Ian M. Barnes, Lead Engineer, Nestor R. Voronka, Chief Technologist, Jeffrey T. Slostad, Chief Engineer, AIAA SPACE 2009 Conference & Exposition, The Terminator Tape™ : A Cost-Effective De-Orbit Module for End-of-Life Disposal of LEO Satellites, September 16 2009, http://www.tethers.com/papers/TermTapeSpace2009.pdf, SP)

To minimize the chances that a satellite will fragment and contribute to the growth of the space debris population, it is necessary to not only reduce the orbital lifetime of the satellite, but also reduce its area-time-product, which determines its probability of experiencing a collision with another space object. Deorbit devices which rely exclusively upon drag enhancement may reduce the orbital lifetime of a system, but for these systems the orbit lifetime scales as the inverse of the deployed area, so they offer little or no improvement in area-time-product. Because the Terminator Tape induces both aerodynamic and electrodynamic drag to accelerate the deorbit of a spacecraft, it can achieve a net reduction in area-time-product, and thus a reduction in the probability the object will experience a collision. Figure 8 shows plots of deorbit time and area-time-product for 17 cm wide tapes of varying length. The plot indicates that the Terminator Tape module can roughly halve the area-time-product of the satellite. There appears to be little advantage to using tape lengths in excess of 150 meters in terms of reducing area-time-product, so in designing a Terminator Tape module for a given spacecraft, the tape length should be chosen as the minimum length at which the system will meet the 25-year lifetime restriction.

The Terminator Tape can also solve for nano-satellites.Hoyt et. al 9 (Robert P., President, Chief Scientist, and CEO of Tethers Unlimited Inc., Ian M. Barnes, Lead Engineer, Nestor R. Voronka, Chief Technologist, Jeffrey T. Slostad, Chief Engineer, AIAA SPACE 2009 Conference & Exposition, The Terminator Tape™ : A Cost-Effective De-Orbit Module for End-of-Life Disposal of LEO Satellites, September 16 2009, http://www.tethers.com/papers/TermTapeSpace2009.pdf, SP)

Nano- and pico-satellites such as CubeSats have developed as an attractive platform for conducting space flight missions rapidly and at low cost. A large number of organizations, including government agencies, universities, and commercial companies, are taking advantage of the lower cost barrier to spaceflight afforded by the CubeSat program, and even if only a small fractions of these programs make it all the way to flight they will contribute dozens of new objects to the space catalogue per year. Because these spacecraft typically fly as secondary payloads, their operational orbit is determined by the launch vehicle’s primary payload orbit, and as a result, most opportunities to fly CubeSats are in orbits where the CubeSat will not meet the 25 year orbital lifetime restriction without use of a drag enhancement device. Fortunately, the Terminator Tape technology is highly scalable, and so we have also implemented the technology in a device suitable for use on CubeSats and other pico- and nano-satellites, shown in Figure 9. This “nanoTerminator Tape for CubeSats” is sized to mount on one face of a CubeSat. It can be mounted so that it projects out into the ‘extra volume’ beyond the rail faces, as permitted by the CalPoly P-POD payload specification, as illustrated in Figure 10. The module contains a 30-m length of conducting tape. The lid of the module is restrained by a burn wire actuator, which can be activated by a small circuit board that must be integrated into the CubeSat. The module design includes electrical feed-throughs so that solar cells can be mounted on the face of the module. The mass of the module, including circuit board, but not including battery, is 80 grams.

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US key (1/4)

Unilateral action is key - international norms just don’t have the credibility to cause any kind of long lasting debris mitigation –the recent chinese ASAT tests prove.Hitchens 7 (Theresa, Director of the Center for Defense Information, Brown Journal of World Affairs, Debris, Traffic Management, and Weaponization: Opportunities for and Challenges to Cooperation in Space, December 2007, Vol. 14 Issue 1, p173-186, SP)

International efforts to mitigate debris indicate both the slow pace and complicated nature of multinational cooperation regarding outer space issues, while also highlighting the possibilities for success when space-faring nations are convinced that their interests are at stake. The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC)—comprising the space agencies of China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States, plus the European Space Agency—^was established in 1993 as a mechanism for space agencies to exchange information. In 2001, COPUOS charged the IADC to develop a set of voluntary debris mitigation guidelines that might be adopted by the committee and the United Nations at large. The resulting guidelines included technical recommendations for nations to limit debris released during normal space operations, to minimize the potential for on-orbit break ups, and to undertake post-mission spacecraft disposal and prevent collisions.'^ These were originally expected to be endorsed in 2004; however, several nations (particularly Russia and India, two nations that have been somewhat leery of taking on extra costs for mitigation measures) objected to some sections, which engendered nearly three extra years of negotiations and ultimately resulted in a less technical, more political version of the IADC language. The COPUOS subcommittee finally adopted the revised guidelines at its forty-fourth session, held 12-23 February 2007.'' According to participants, the "consensus version" was approved by the full committee in June, and COPUOS is now expected to forward the guidelines to the UN General Assembly for approval in September 2007.''* While not having the force of law or treaty, if approved as expected, the voluntary guidelines would serve as a set of best practices, providing a norm for future activities. Further, while the guidelines leave leeway for exceptions, any non-compliant or "exceptional" behavior must at a minimum be reported by the nation responsible. While the IADC/COPUOS debris guidelines development stands as a success story for multinational cooperative efforts in space, the implementation process was painful and not without controversies that may threaten the future realization of the landmark accord.'^ Most egregious was the Chinese decision on 11 January 2007 to test an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon against one of its own satellites—^just as the negotiations on the mitigation guidelines were coming to fruition. The Chinese test, which destroyed the aging FY-IC weather satellite at an altitude of 850 kilometers, created more than 1,000 pieces of debris bigger than 10 centimeters in diameter (slightly larger than a baseball), and an "estimated cloud" of 35,000 pieces of smaller debris. This debris, which spread out across several heavily used orbital bands, will remain on orbit for up to 100 years and threatens several hundred satellites in orbits nearby.'* NASA's chief orbital debris scientist called it "the worst satellite fragmentation in the history ofthe space age."'^ The test came despite the fact that Beijing has been a key player in the development of the mitigation guidelines that specifically call for space actors to "avoid intentional destruction and other harmful activities"—a clause that some governments believe not only can, but also should be applied to weapons tests by the world's militaries.'* While China apparently has told its Japanese interlocutors that there would be no follow-up test, Beijing's assurances are being eyed with some skepticism." Somewhat ominously, China abruptly cancelled with only a few days' notice an IADC meeting planned in Beijing.^" The Chinese test also raises the specter that other nations will choose to follow similar paths, which would in effect obviate the newly minted mitigation guidelines.

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US key (2/4)

Unilateral action in reducing space debris is key for effective action; the US has specific incentives to take the lead.Ansdell in 10 (Master in international Science and Technology Policy at the University’s Elliott school of International Affairs with a focus on space policy, Princeton Journal of Public and International Affairs, Space Debris Removal, http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf, AX)

International cooperation in space has rarely resulted in cost-effective or expedient solutions, especially in politically-charged areas of uncertain technological feasibility. The International Space Station, because of both political and technical setbacks, has taken over two decades to deploy and cost many billions of dollars—far more time and money than was originally intended. Space debris mitigation has also encountered aversion in international forums. The topic was brought up in COPUOS as early as 1980, yet a policy failed to develop despite a steady flow of documents on the increasing danger of space debris (Perek 1991). In fact, COPUOS did not adopt debris mitigation guidelines until 2007 and, even then, they were legally non-binding. Space debris removal systems could take decades to develop and deploy through international partnerships due to the many interdisciplinary challenges they face. Given the need to start actively removing space debris sooner rather than later to ensure the continued benefits of satellite services, international cooperation may not be the most appropriate mechanism for instigating the first space debris removal system. Instead, IG one country should take a leadership role by establishing a national space debris removal program. This would accelerate technology development and demonstration, which would, in turn, build-up trust and hasten international participation in space debris removal. Possibilities of Leadership As previously discussed, a recent NASA study found that annually removing as little as five massive pieces of debris in critical orbits could significantly stabilize the long-term space debris environment (Liou and Johnson 2007). This suggests that it is feasible for one nation to unilaterally develop and deploy an effective debris removal system. As the United States is responsible for creating much of the debris in Earth’s orbit, it is a candidate for taking a leadership role in removing it, along with other heavy polluters of the space environment such as China and Russia. There are several reasons why the United States should take this leadership role, rather than China or Russia. First and foremost, the United States would be hardest hit by the loss of satellites services. It owns about half of the roughly 800 operating satellites in orbit and its military is significantly more dependent upon them than any other entity (Moore 2008). For example, GPS precision-guided munitions are a key component of the “new American way of war” (Dolman 2006, 163-165), which allows the United States to remain a globally dominant military power while also waging war in accordance with its political and ethical values by enabling faster, less costly war fighting with minimal collateral damage (Sheldon 2005). The U.S. Department of Defense recognized the need to protect U.S. satellite systems over ten years ago when it stated in its 1999 Space Policy that, “the ability to access and utilize space is a vital national interest because many of the activities conducted in the medium are critical to U.S. national security and economic well-being” (U.S. Department of Defense 1999, 6). Clearly, the United States has a vested interest in keeping the near-Earth space environment free from threats like space debris and thus assuring U.S. access to space. Moreover, current U.S. National Space Policy asserts that the United States will take a “leadership role” in space debris minimization. This could include the development, deployment, and demonstration of an effective space debris removal system to remove U.S. debris as well as that of other nations, upon their request. There could also be international political and economic advantages associated with being the first country to develop this revolutionary technology. However, there is always the danger of other nations simply benefiting from U.S. investment of its resources in IH this area. Thus, mechanisms should also be created to avoid a classic “free rider” situation. For example, techniques could be employed to ensure other countries either join in the effort later on or pay appropriate fees to the United States for removal services.

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US key (3/4)

Unilateral US Action is key to removing space debris. Dinerman in 09 (Writer of space Review and Wall Street Journal, The Space Review, Unilateral Orbital Cleanup, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1365/1 5/4/9 AX )

It is often claimed that the US depends more on space activities than any other nation. It certainly spends more than anyone else. So while the degree of America’s dependence on satellites for military, commercial, and civil purposes may be legitimately questioned, its interest in seeing the near-Earth space environment kept as free of debris as possible is all too obvious. Over the years there have been many ideas floating around on how to deal with this problem. While international agreements, such as the 2007 Debris Mitigation Guidelines or proposals to share space situational awareness information, may be marginally useful, they will never, by themselves, remove a single speck of space junk from our planet’s neighborhood. When it comes to actually doing something about the problem the task and most of the cost will almost inevitably fall to the Americans. Nick Johnson, NASA’s top expert on space debris, has stated, “This is a big environment and the US doing something by itself is not sufficient.” However, if the Americans do nothing then it’s likely no one else will either. It sometimes seems as if those in power in Washington and elsewhere are more interested in making excuses and explaining why they cannot actually do anything about the problem than they are in trying to figure out an effective response. This raises the question of what would actually work? High-powered lasers, like those developed for the Airborne Laser (ABL) missile defense system recently cut back by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, might be useful dealing with a limited amount of debris in very low Earth orbit. It would certainly be worthwhile testing this idea instead of dismissing it out of hand. The big problem, however, is well beyond the range of any existing laser. What is required is a new type of space maneuver vehicle, one that can rendezvous with, catch, and store a bit of debris, and then proceed to the next one. Such a vehicle would not need to move very fast: the process would be a leisurely one, and thus would allow for the use of a highly efficient space propulsion system such as a pulse plasma thruster or ion engine. Each move could be as carefully planned as the moves of the Mars rovers are. The operations could be carried out according to a plan that would deal with the most dangerous pieces of debris first. Designing and building these spacecraft would involve a virtuous technology cycle: a steady process of marginal improvements, somewhat akin to what we have seen with the GPS satellites. Each advance in the subsystems would be integrated into a new block of satellites The design and manufacturing teams involved will constantly be sharpening their skills. Again, as with GPS, the companies building these spacecraft will have to compete for the contracts and will thus have to pay careful attention to the quality and cost of their work. As with GPS cleaning up Earth orbit is a job best left to the US Department of Defense. It may legitimately be argued that the Pentagon already has too much to do and that the last thing it needs is to take on yet another task, especially one that involves providing the international community with another “global good”. However, in the broad scheme of things it would be better for the US military to provide this essential service than to leave it to NASA or to a nebulous international consortium. By the end of the next decade, NASA, if all goes well, will be getting out of the business of operating spacecraft in Earth orbit. The ISS may still be useful but one hopes that by then the Earth sciences mission will have been handed over to NOAA and to the National Science Foundation. In any case the agency has its hands full trying to accomplish the exploration goals that the President and Congress have already agreed on. An international consortium is a recipe for doing almost nothing and doing it very, very slowly. The process of negotiating the preliminary agreement would probably take more time than it took the Defense Department to go from concept to the first GPS satellite in orbit. Figuring out the industrial politics of a multinational debris collection spacecraft manufacturing project would add years to the whole program. Certainly the Pentagon’s procurement process leaves much to be desired—and that’s putting it mildly—but it is far better than the alternatives. Of course the expertise the US would develop while performing this (continued) task would have many useful military applications, and as such would be objected to by those who are always on the look out for anything that looks like a US “space weapon”. Such spacecraft, though, would move far too slowly to themselves be used in an effective anti-satellite mode. The skills involve would in fact be far more useful in the robotic building of large structures in space, including solar power satellites. Eventually other nations would see America gaining prestige and technological advantages from its efforts and would try and emulate it. Such emulation would only show that Washington had the right, public-spirited idea in the first place. It would be far better for President Obama’s administration to begin the process of developing the spacecraft that will clean up Earth’s celestial neighborhood now, rather than to wait for an international consensus or for more incidents to happen.

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US key (4/4)

US action spills over - US getting rid of space debris would spreadMirmin in 5, (Steven A,, sr . attorney, the American Society of Intl Law, Reducing the Proliferation of Orbital Debris: Alternatives to a Legally Binding Instrument, July 2005 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1602296, lexis. DT)

One efficient way that individual states can   implement measures to reduce orbital debris is through the adoption of   national measures, which could be done by promulgating and enforcing an effective national regulatory system. Subsequently, this unilateral commitment to enforce national measures could become more widespread if states were to   negotiate and conclude a series of parallel unilateral commitments to mitigate debris proliferation, as was done in the context of weapons under the MTCR and the Wassenaar Arrangement.

US cleanup key; sets example within international stageCollins 94 (Jennifer, PhD in Physics, Department of Space and Climate PhysicsMullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London (United Kingdom), Harvard International Review, JUNKYARD IN THE SKIES, Vol. 17 Issue 1, p64, Winter 94/95, MS)

Adopting a policy to limit the creation of additional space debris will help control the problem, whereas the lack of such a policy change will surely lead to a quick demise for all space programs. The sooner debris ceases to accumulate in the space environment, the easier the debris dilemma will be to resolve. Toward this end, NASA has already created new equipment that lessens the chances that discarded rockets will eventually explode. In addition, electrical protection circuits have been added to spacecraft batteries in order to prevent short circuits, which can cause explosions. Furthermore, many countries have instituted preventive measures to minimize the creation of space debris. Joseph Loftus, a high-ranking official at the Johnson Space Center, notes that "the US, Soviet, European, Japanese, and other space programs now try to ensure that their rocket stages are emptied of fuel and pressure once in orbit." These measures would prevent detonations that result from collisions between abandoned rocket stages and small objects--small debris would merely pierce the empty piece of equipment. These and many other steps are now being taken to preclude further pollution of the LEO, but more change is necessary to ensure that residual junk from missions does not continue to be left behind in space

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Plan comes first

Space debris will preclude usage of space services and safety of space while creating a cloud of junk that stops all exploration, killing major power relations.Senechal 10 (Thierry, Policy Manager with the International Chamber of Commerce, Papers on International Environmental Treaty-Making, Space Debris Pollution: A Convention Proposal, 2010, http://www.pon.org/downloads/ien16.2.Senechal.pdf, SP)The time is right for addressing the problem posed by orbital debris and realizing that, if we fail to do so, there will be an increasing risk to continued reliable use of space-based services and operations as well as to the safety of persons and property in space. We have reached a critical threshold at which the density of debris at certain altitudes is high enough to guarantee collisions, thus resulting in increased fragments. In a scenario in which space launches are more frequent, it is likely that we will create a self-sustaining, semi-permanent cloud of orbital ―pollution that threatens all future commercial and exploration activities within certain altitude ranges. The debris and the liability it may cause may also poison relations between major powers.

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Small Debris > Threat (1/4)

Small debris poses a larger threat than larger debris because of low energy fragmentation.Ganguli, Crabtree, Rudkov, Chappie 4-7-11 (Gurudas, Christopher, Leonid, Scott, Plasma Physics Researcher at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C, Icarus Research Incorporation, Naval Center For Space Technology Naval Research Laboratory, Cornell University Library- Space Physics, A Concept For Elimination of Small Orbital Debris, April 7, 2011, http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1104/1104.1401.pdf, pg 2, NG)

Collision of small debris with large objects could also create secondary small debris. To understand fragmentation in a low energy collision we make simple scaling arguments to the NASA high energy fragmentation model 8) . Consider a debris fragment, such as a piece of satellite structure (Al, size ~10 cm, 30-50 g), which collides with a satellite weighing 500 kg and about a meter in characteristic size. Considering a relative velocity of 15 km/s the debris kinetic energy is about 3-5 MJ, which is equivalent to the explosive power of about 1 kg TNT. The collision is likely to puncture a hole in the satellite external structure (as in Fig. 1b), break apart the internal structures of the satellite into smaller pieces, and increase the pressure inside the satellite. Since 3 MJ spread over 1m 3 is equivalent to 30 atmospheres, the satellite structure would be subjected to 10-30 atmospheres from inside. Under such a jump of pressure the satellite will break up and small fragments generated by the impact inside the satellite would be expelled out as secondary small debris. Such break up of satellites may not be as catastrophic as the high energy fragmentation and hence of fragments is expected to be much smaller than that which would result from a high energy fragmentation. We can estimate of the expelled fragments by scaling to the well studied case of the Chinese ASAT test. According to Johnson et al. (2008) the Fengyun1C was destroyed by a ballistic kinetic kill vehicle (KKV) which collided with the satellite with a relative velocity of approximately 9 km/s. Assuming the mass of the KKV to be between 50 - 80 kg the kinetic energy is about 2000 MJ which is about 600 times larger than the kinetic energy delivered by a typical small debris. The ΔV Δ ΔV of the fragments from Fengyun-1C can be estimated to be around 300 m/s 8,9) . Since the kinetic energy is proportional to V we expect the debris fragments from a collision with a typical small debris to have a velocity that is 2 600 25 Δ ≈ times less; i.e., for a typical low energy fragmentation . Clearly, the characteristic of the low energy fragmentation is quite different from the high energy fragmentation 8) but it can generate secondary small debris. Therefore, removal of small orbital debris is just as, if not more, important than the removal of larger objects because they are also a source for secondary small debris and due to larger population their collision frequency is much higher.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Small Debris > Threat (2/4)

Large debris cleanup is unimportant and happening in the squo, small debris is almost impossible to track and can cause enormous problemsGanguli, Crabtree, Rudkov, Chappie 4-7-11 (Gurudas, Christopher, Leonid, Scott, Plasma Physics Researcher at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C, Icarus Research Incorporation, Naval Center For Space Technology Naval Research Laboratory, Cornell University Library- Space Physics, A Concept For Elimination of Small Orbital Debris, April 7, 2011, http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1104/1104.1401.pdf, pgs 1-2, NG)

Space debris can be broadly classified into two categories: (i) large debris with dimension larger than 10 cm and (ii) small debris with dimension smaller than 10 cm. The smaller debris are more numerous and are difficult to detect and impossible to individually track. This makes them more dangerous than the fewer larger debris which can be tracked and hence avoided. In addition, there are solutions for larger debris, for example, NRL’s FREND device that can remove large objects from useful orbits and place them in graveyard orbits 1) . To the best of our knowledge there are no credible solutions for the small debris. Damage from even millimeter size debris can be dangerous. Fig. 1 shows examples of damage by small debris collision. The source of small debris is thought to be collision between large objects 2) , such as spent satellites, which can lead to a collisional cascade 3) . Perhaps a more ominous source of smaller debris is collision between large and small objects as we describe in the following. Since such collisions will be more frequent our focus is to develop a concept for eliminating the small orbital debris which can not be individually tracked to evade collision. 2. Small Debris Population The LEO debris population is primarily localized within a 50 degree inclination angle and mostly in the sun synchronous nearly circular orbits 4) . The distribution of larger trackable debris peaks around 800 km altitude. The smaller debris, although impossible to track individually, can be characterized statistically 5) and the resulting distribution is roughly similar to the tracked debris but peaks at higher (~ 1000 km) altitude. The lifetimes of debris increase with their ballistic coefficient, B , defined as the ratio of mass to area 6) . Debris with B ~ 3 − 5 kg/m 2 peak around 1000 km and their lifetime becomes 25 years or less below 900 km. Above 900 km the lifetimes can be centuries. Therefore, the task of small debris removal is essentially to reduce the debris orbit height from around 1100 km to below 900 km and then let nature take its course. Today there are about 900 active satellites and about 19,000 Earth-orbiting cataloged objects larger than 10 cm. However, there are countless smaller objects that can not be tracked individually. Unintentional (collision or explosion) or intentional (ASAT event) fragmentation of satellites increases the debris population significantly. For example, the 2007 Chinese ASAT test generated 2400 pieces of large debris and countless smaller ones in the popular sun synchronous orbit at 900 km altitude 7) . A similar increase of the debris population also resulted from the 2009 collision of the Iridium 33 satellite with a spent Russian satellite Kosmos-2251. These collisions are examples of high energy fragmentation where the energy dissipated is several hundreds if not thousands of MJ and the average velocity spread of the fragments could be several hundred m/s. Since the population of smaller debris ~ 10 cm size is at least an order of magnitude higher, their collision frequency with larger objects would correspondingly be an order of magnitude higher. However the energy in such collisions is typically less than 10 MJ

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Small Debris > Threat (3/4)

Space debris damage increasing, collisions make even small particles disastrous. Stein 03(senior writer, Washington Post, NASA Explores Whether Space Debris at Fault, February 6,2003, http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/; rn)

The Pentagon's Space Control Center in Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado tracks more than 8,500 manmade objects and has warned NASA 12 times to move the shuttle out of the way of a potential collision. The space station has moved six times after a military warning. But an estimated 95 percent of the objects that could cause critical damage to the shuttle are not tracked by the military because they are too small. "Even something as small as a fleck of paint, when it's traveling at really high speeds, could cause significant damage," Emero said. It is possible that Columbia was struck without the crew noticing. "Sometimes the mass of the particles is so small it impacts, and nobody feels anything and has no effect on the orbiter. Other times the reaction control system would react and fire a thruster a little, but it would be hard to notice that," Emero said. But just because an impact was so small it wasn't noticed does not mean it might not be fatal. "The speeds are quite enormous, 17,000 miles per hour in relation to the Earth. So even a small object moving at that speed has a lot of energy and could cause a lot of damage ," he said. And even if the initial damage appeared relatively mild, it could have serious consequences if it occurred at an especially crucial location on the shuttle. Minor damage can turn into catastrophic damage under the intense pressures of reentering Earth's atmosphere. "It might be a tiny object -- maybe an inch or so in size -- could strike the shuttle's tiles. The tiles are like an Achilles' heel for the shuttle. Perhaps it was struck by orbital debris in a vulnerable place, and that might have caused heat to leak in during reentry, which led to a cascade of events that led to structural failure of the vehicle," Lindner said. The Hubble Space Telescope, which has been orbiting Earth for a decade, has a three-quarter-inch hole in its antenna that was probably caused by debris or a small rock. "There may be millions of these objects. Because they're moving very fast, they can do serious damage," Lindner said. The National Academy of Sciences panel recommended that NASA take steps to better protect shuttles against debris, including researching possible upgrades to make them less vulnerable and inspecting shuttles for possible damage before they descend back to Earth.

Small debris causes millions of dollars of damage to shielded space objects.Campbell, 2000 (Jonathan W., Colonel USAFR, Center for Strategy and Technology, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Using Lasers in Space, Laser Orbital Debris Removal and Asteroid Deflection, December 2000, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cst/csat20.pdf, NG)

Fragmentation generally produces large numbers of objects that are too small to he [sic] tracked reliably. High-velocity impact tests have shown that shields that are designed to protect satellites can he effective against objects that are less than about 1-2 cm in diameter. Such shielding is part of the design for the International Space Stat ion. Depending on environmental requirements, satellites and space vehicles may require shielding, or active protection from impacts with small particles, notably orbital debris and micrometeoroids. For particles that are larger than 2 cm, the cost of shielding a space vehicle is prohibitive. There have been numerous surveys of debris in the 1-10 cm diameter range. Radar and optical surveys, when used in conjunction with computer models, reveal that there is roughly 150,000 objects in orbits below 1500 kilometers. The problem is that each of these objects is quite capable of causing catastrophic damage to shielded spacecraft, and yet are too small to he tracked reliably by avoidance sensors. The likely composition of the debris was considered by the Orion study. The debris was classified into five representative groups, with objects made of aluminum, steel, sodium/potassium metal, carbon phenolic, and multi- layer insulation (MLI). 1 Based on the number of objects in low-earth orbit, and using the Iridium satellite system as an example, if we assume that the replacement cost of one of the 66 satellites in the $3.450 billion system is roughly $50 million, then the total cost to LEO satellites from orbital debris is estimated to be roughly $40 million per year. Debris-related expenses that are on the order of tens of millions of dollars per year should he compared with estimates from the Orion study for debris removal. It estimated that eliminating debris in orbits tip to 800 km in altitude within 3 years of operation would not exceed $200 million. It was for this reason that the study team has proposed a technology demonstration project as a next step, which is estimated to cost roughly $13-28 million

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Small Debris > Threat (4/4)

It’s those space debris that are between one and 10 centimeters that are most dangerous to satellites. Ansdell in 10 (Master in international Science and Technology Policy at the University’s Elliott school of International Affairs with a focus on space policy, Princeton Journal of Public and International Affairs, Space Debris Removal, http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf, AX)

The most dangerous pieces of space debris are those ranging in diameter from one to ten centimeters, of which there are roughly 300,000 in orbit. These are large enough to cause serious damage, yet current sensor networks cannot track them and there is no practical method for shielding spacecraft against them. Consequently, this class of orbital debris poses an invisible threat to operating satellites (Wright 2007, 36). Debris larger than ten centimeters, of which there are roughly 19,000 in orbit, can also incapacitate satellites but they are large enough to be tracked and thus potentially avoided. Debris smaller than one centimeter, in contrast, cannot be tracked or avoided, but can be protected against by using relatively simple shielding (Wright 2007, 36).

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Large Debris > Threat (1/2)

Removing large space debris is key to solving space debris Foust in 2009 (Bachelors in geophysics from CalTech, editor and publisher of The Space Review, The Space Review, Putting a bounty on orbital debris http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1427/1 , July 27, 09 AX).

The key for any remediation effort, explained Joe Carroll of Tether Applications, Inc., is to focus not on small objects but much larger ones—intact satellites and upper stages—that, if they collide with another large object, can create a thousands of objects, as the Iridium-Cosmos collision this year illustrated. “There are going to be nearly as many ‘large-large’ collisions—of objects between 25 kilograms and 8 tons—as there are ‘small-large’, and much more than there are ‘small-small’,” he said, explaining that this was because of the much greater collisional cross-section of larger objects.

Recent collisions show that reduction of trackable large objects is the best way to prevent all types of debris because trackable collisions happen every 3-6 years.McKnight 10 (Darren, Technical Director of Integrity Applications, Proceedings of the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies Conference, Pay Me Now or Pay Me More Later: Start the Development of Active Orbital Debris Removal Now, September 2010, http://www.amostech.com/TechnicalPapers/2010/Posters/McKnight.pdf, SP)

Eventually, this increased collision rate will result in a series of collisions between large objects and the total debris population will start to increase rapidly. In fact, before the 2007 Chinese ASAT event, the average annual increase to the cataloged population was around 250 objects per year. The Chinese test contributed over 2,700 trackable objects (while more than 3,000 have actually been identified) so, this single event contributed over ten years’ worth of population number growth. While this event was a purposeful collision, rather than accidental, the debris creation issue is still relevant. The accidental collision in February 2009 of the operational Iridium and defunct Russian communications satellites created more than 1,600 trackable objects (while over 2,000 objects have been identified), which is still over six years of “typical” growth. With a single event producing many years of “typical” debris accumulation, it is easy to see how quickly previous predictions of collision rates will have to be updated with new population levels. Work done in the 1970s by Don Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais hinted at the situation that is now becoming a reality: collisions between trackable objects are occurring with sufficient frequency such that these events are the main driver for future debris growth across all size ranges. [7] This is simple to understand since two colliding large trackable objects will create hundreds of trackable objects plus tens of thousands of lethal projectiles and so act as an accelerant to the growth of lethal (>1cm) debris fragments. Recent analyses and empirical evidence in LEO shows that trackable objects are likely to collide with each other every three to six years. [1, 2, 8] The empirical evidence shows that trackable-on-trackable collisions have occurred in 1992, 1996, 2005, and 2009 – an average of every five years since 1990 though it can be argued that only one of these events was catastrophic. All of these occurred in the 670-885 km altitude range, with the most recent collision being the most severe. However, the first three events all occurred with about the same cataloged population of about 10,000 objects while the 2009 event took place when the cataloged population had grown to 13,000 (a 30% increase).

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Large Debris > Threat (2/2)

Removing large, massive objects is the only way to solve – reducing small debris won’t work.Wright no date (David, codirector and senior scientist with the global security program of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Physics Today, Space Debris, no full date, http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_10/35_1.shtml#bio, SP)

If the debris density becomes large enough at some altitudes, those regions of space can become "supercritical," meaning that collisions between objects are frequent enough that they produce additional debris faster than atmospheric drag removes debris from the region. The additional particles further increase the collision probability in the region, which leads to a slow-motion chain reaction or cascade as the large objects in orbit are ground into smaller fragments. That situation is sometimes called the Kessler syndrome after Donald Kessler, who studied the possibility.11 A study released by NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office in 2006, before the Chinese test, showed that parts of space have already reached supercritical debris densities.12 In particular, the study shows that in the heavily used altitude band from 900 to 1000 km, the number of debris fragments larger than 10 cm is expected to more than triple over the next 200 years, even assuming no additional objects are launched into the band. The study estimates that the total population of large debris in LEO will increase by nearly 40% during that time, still under the assumption of no additional launches. The debris from the Chinese test will make matters worse. An important implication of the study is that while mitigation efforts are important for slowing the increases, only debris-remediation measures such as removing large, massive objects already in orbit can hope to prevent their consequences. Remediation efforts such as robotic missions to remove defunct satellites and rocket stages are very expensive, but are being studied.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

Topicality Definitions (Aff)

Space development is research and technology activities related to space objectsSDPA 5(Space Development Promotion Act of the ROK, Journal of Space Law, May 31, 2005, http://www.spacelaw.olemiss.edu/library/space/Korea/Laws/33jsl175.pdf, NG)(a) The term “space development” means one of the following: (i) Research and technology development activities related to design, production, launch, operation, etc. of space objects; (ii) Use and exploration of outer space and activities to facilitate them;

Development is a significant event – which cleaning space debris isRandom House Dictionary 2011 (Large American dictionary first published in 1966, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/development, NU)2. a significant consequence or event : recent developments inthe field of science.

Development is a district that has been developed to serve some purposeFarlex No date (The Free Dictionary, Farlex, Princeton University, 2003-2008, “Development”, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/development, NG)6. development - a district that has been developed to serve some purpose; "such land is practical for small park developments"

Development is a significant changeAmerican Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 9 (Fourth Edition Houghton Mifflin Company, Updated 2009, “Development”, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/development, NG)3. A significant event, occurrence, or change.

Development of space is synonymous to development of landCollins English Dictionary 2003 (Complete and Unabridged, HarperCollins Publishers, 2003, “Development”, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/development, NG)4. (Social Science / Human Geography) an area or tract of land that has been developed

Development is a concrete result of a processOxford English Dictionary No Date (Second Edition online version June 2011, “development”, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/51434?redirectedFrom=development#eid, NG) I. The process or fact of developing; the concrete result of this process.

Development results in a fuller view. Space debris cleanup brings a fuller view of spaceOxford English Dictionary No Date (Second Edition online version June 2011, “development”, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/51434?redirectedFrom=development#eid, NG)A gradual unfolding, a bringing into fuller view; a fuller disclosure or working out of the details of anything, as a plan, a scheme, the plot of a novel. Also quasi-concr. that in which the fuller unfolding is embodied or realized.

Development is evolution production a change from the latent conditionOxford English Dictionary No Date (Second Edition online version June 2011, “development”, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/51434?redirectedFrom=development#eid, NG) 2. Evolution or bringing out from a latent or elementary condition; the production of a natural force, energy, or new form of matter.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

A2: Perception/Militarization DA (1/2)

Openness and transparency can solve perception/militarization DAsAnsdell in 10 (Master in international Science and Technology Policy at the University’s Elliott school of International Affairs with a focus on space policy, Princeton Journal of Public and International Affairs, Space Debris Removal, http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf, AX)

Another major concern is the similarities between space debris removal systems and space weapons. Indeed, any system that can remove a useless object from orbit can also remove a useful one. There is an extensive and ongoing debate over space weapons, and in particular how to define them (Moltz 2008, 42-43). As the decades-long debate has failed to even produce a clear definition of the term, it will be nearly impossible to actively remove space debris without the use of devices that could be classified in some way as potential space weapons. Thus, openness and transparency will be an important element in the development, deployment, and operation of any space debris removal system so that it is not seen as a covert ASAT weapon.

No link to perception DAs: Normal means proves that the program will be transparent. Ansdell in 10 (Master in international Science and Technology Policy at the University’s Elliott school of International Affairs with a focus on space policy, Princeton Journal of Public and International Affairs, Space Debris Removal, http://www.princeton.edu/jpia/past-issues-1/2010/Space-Debris-Removal.pdf, AX)

Any national space debris removal program must also be kept transparent with ongoing international dialogue in forums such as COPUOS so that other nations can build-up trust in the effectiveness and efficiency of the program. A proven debris removal program will result in more productive discussions in these international forums.

ORION laser cannot be perceived anti-satellite weapon, inadequate power. Bekey 97 (Ivan, President of Bekey Designs, writer for Aerospace America, Space Future, Orions Laser: Hunting Space Debris, Aerospace America, Vol 35, No. 4, pg 38-44 , http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/orions_laser_hunting_space_debris.shtml, SP)

It is important to note that neither of these systems can even remotely be considered an anti-satellite weapon. In both cases the power is grossly inadequate for this purpose. If pointed at an average satellite , such a system would have to irradiate it continuously for many months before making major reductions in its perigee, and four years before damaging its structure. Optical sensors aboard some spacecraft could be damaged if they looked at the laser and the laser were simultaneously illuminating the spacecraft, but simple avoidance of such pointing by the spacecraft will ensure that this does not occur. An Orion system would also avoid irradiating satellites by simple inhibition of radiation when they are in its field of view. This is current doctrine and practice in laser operation and tests. Either of these Orion systems could protect the ISS and all other LEO satellites below their operating altitude from debris impacts in the 1-10-cm size range. In fact, if the intent were to protect only the ISS, a considerably cheaper system with a maximum altitude capability of only 500 km would probably suffice. In either case, periodic operation of the system would be needed to clear the debris objects continuing to rain down below Orion's design altitude from debris sources above. However, even if Orion were developed and operated, the ISS and other vulnerable spacecraft would still have to be designed and shielded against debris smaller than about 1 cm, since such objects are not reliably detected and are too numerous to engage with a ground laser..

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

A2: Perception/Militarization DA (2/2)

Perception misconception impossible; Orion clearly not a weaponHollopeter 09 (James E., Former head of the Orbital Debris Program Office, The X-Journals, Development of A Ballistic Orbital Debris Removal System, 5/29/09, http://x-journals.com/2009/development-of-a-ballistic-orbital-debris-removal-system/, M.S.)

It is important to note that neither of these systems can even remotely be considered an anti-satellite weapon. In both cases the power is grossly inadequate for this purpose. If pointed at an average satellite, such a system would have to irradiate it continuously for many months before making major reductions in its perigee, and four years before damaging its structure. Optical sensors aboard some spacecraft could be damaged if they looked at the laser and the laser were simultaneously illuminating the spacecraft, but simple avoidance of such pointing by the spacecraft will ensure that this does not occur. An Orion system would also avoid irradiating satellites by simple inhibition of radiation when they are in its field of view. This is current doctrine and practice in laser operation and tests. Either of these Orion systems could protect the ISS and all other LEO satellites below their operating altitude from debris impacts in the 1-10-cm size range. In fact, if the intent were to protect only the ISS, a considerably cheaper system with a maximum altitude capability of only 500 km would probably suffice. In either case, periodic operation of the system would be needed to clear the debris objects continuing to rain down below Orion's design altitude from debris sources above. However, even if Orion were developed and operated, the ISS and other vulnerable spacecraft would still have to be designed and shielded against debris smaller than about 1 cm, since such objects are not reliably detected and are too numerous to engage with a ground laser.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

A2: Econ/Spending DA

We win a link turn to the spending disad – insurance costs radically grow up due to recent debris collisions, and more collisions are probable.McKnight 10 (Darren, Technical Director of Integrity Applications, Proceedings of the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies Conference, Pay Me Now or Pay Me More Later: Start the Development of Active Orbital Debris Removal Now, September 2010, http://www.amostech.com/TechnicalPapers/2010/Posters/McKnight.pdf, SP)

Space insurance is one domain where there is a quantifiable threshold that will produce economic impacts. Nominally, the bulk of the 10-15% average premium for a space mission covers the launch vehicle flight and the initial (first year) satellite operations while only a small portion of the total premium (i.e. about 1.5% of the satellite value per year) is for on-orbit operations after startup. [15] When the collision risk reaches a value of 1.5% per year, insurance premiums will likely increase. However, once a collision with an insured satellite occurs, the urgency for starting active debris removal options will also likely accelerate. While the probability of a single spacecraft being destroyed, or even just rendered non-operational, by a collision with a large trackable piece of debris is small, the probability that any large object will collide with another is quite a bit higher. The probability of collision for a specific satellite is proportional to the number of objects posing a collision hazard with it while the collision rate between objects is a function of the square of the number of objects present, assuming that the ratio of the large fragments to intact spacecraft is constant with time. [7] In this way, while a hypothetical 20% increase in the population would only produce a 20% increase in collision probability for a single large object, the probability that any two large objects colliding goes up by over 40%. This collision rate is only an approximation since as collisions occur between large objects the ratio of large fragments to intact spacecraft will change. However, early in this process (i.e. for several decades) this approximation introduces very little error. Eventually, this increased collision rate will result in a series of collisions between large objects and the total debris population will start to increase rapidly. In fact, before the 2007 Chinese ASAT event, the average annual increase to the cataloged population was around 250 objects per year. The Chinese test contributed over 2,700 trackable objects (while more than 3,000 have actually been identified) so, this single event contributed over ten years’ worth of population number growth. While this event was a purposeful collision, rather than accidental, the debris creation issue is still relevant. The accidental collision in February 2009 of the operational Iridium and defunct Russian communications satellites created more than 1,600 trackable objects (while over 2,000 objects have been identified), which is still over six years of “typical” growth.

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Gonzaga Debate InstituteUSS Enterprise Space Debris Affirmative

A2: Privatization CP

No solvency for the privatization counterplan – private profit motive is incompatible with reducing space debris.Senechal 10 (Thierry, Policy Manager with the International Chamber of Commerce, Papers on International Environmental Treaty-Making, Space Debris Pollution: A Convention Proposal, 2010, http://www.pon.org/downloads/ien16.2.Senechal.pdf, SP)The role of space corporations is seen as important because commercial activity in space is increasing and thus potentially creating more debris. Until recently, space debris was a subject fraught with uncertainties, usually shunned by aerospace corporations around the world and inadequately addressed by many space agencies. As the issue gained prominence in the mid1990s, the private sector has been seeking to find the most appropriate response to address the space debris problem. However, the space industry has been struggling to provide the required solutions. As competition has increased and profits have shrunk, many of the space corporations have adopted ―lean approaches, the ―better, faster, cheaper concept resting on the interconnection of decreased

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