Future travelers in the accelerating international space race recently met an unplanned but not unexpected obstacle. An operational telecommunications satellite and nonfunctioning older satellite struck each other in orbit in what would be a spectacular collision were it not for lots of tiny little bits pluming from the accident zinging around at several kilometers per second. Said future space age travelers must now deal with the completely undesirable consequence of this (overdue?) historic event.

This is worse than pooping in the bathtub because not only must we dodge the remains, what doesn't hit us is going to start raining down! Despite how big space may be (how big exactly is nothing anyway?), no matter how blindingly quickly things move at orbital speeds, given enough time it seems inevitable that such a crack-up will occur. What are the odds? Pretty good obviously, according to scary sky-charts showing an orbital pincushion of man-made objects circling around our home planet. The news reported the military had called the satellite owners with a warning, tribute to their mad orbital tracking skilz. One hopes enough similar competence, coffee, and computer time successfully identifies any subsequent risk to the International Space Station.

Nomad was knocked off its mission by the far superior Tan Ru probe. That impact gifted the changeling fusion with thought and speech as well as a maniacal pursuit for perfection. But we don't get "my son the doctor" for this, only two ever widening toroids of terror, and that's just until the next time (there will be a "next time"). The most alarming element of this whole unpleasant situation is no reasonable plan exists to collect and/or de-orbit all that junk. Human orbital debris is even considered more hazardous than the natural micrometeorites found in space! Not an accomplishment to be proud of.

I've been spending time flying around the outer planets recently. I've been there before but never took much time exploring their moons. The natural satellites of the solar system proceed quite orderly compared to Earth's chaotic halo of lethal flashing pinpricks. The big rocks got most of their colliding done a long time ago, with visits now happening infrequently but with sufficient moment to wipe out many living things every other eon. It's probably some logical fallacy to observe the seamless operation of these bodies in awesome appreciation over our primitive tinker-toy telstars, but I can't help it. Placed up there barely out of our reach, our apish attempt to reproduce them brings no notice whatsoever from their unaffected elegance.