Space (Page 24)

A lot of it will be tourist traffic – There will soon be so much traffic in space?much of from tourists?that traffic jams are expected. Some people want to set up some traffic laws NOW, before it’s too late.

Work is progressing on a Code of Conduct for Space, and just like on highways here on earth, one rule should be: NO littering! Futurist Ray Williamson says, “We look at this important work on a Code of Conduct for Space as also a first step in developing a well-defined piece of space traffic management.”

Drafting a code for space is no easy task. Work is required on deliberating what constitutes “no harmful interference” of space objects, as well as clarifying what are space weapons, such as anti-satellites (ASATs).
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Your next car could come from India and your next vacation could bein space. Futurists predict that outer space will become “the” getaway of this century, and could begin showing up in travel guides by 2010.

Researcher Fred DeMicco says, “In the twenty-first century, space tourism could represent the most significant development experienced by the tourism industry?The technology to make space travel safer and cheaper is moving forward.”
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We may soon be able to take a vacation in space. But why take a plane, when we may eventually be able to take an elevator?

Virgin Atlantic has designed a plane that will eventually take passengers into space, starting in 2010. BBC News quotes CEO Richard Branson as saying, “I think it’s very important that we make a genuine commercial success of this project. If we do, I believe we’ll unlock a wall of private sector money into both space launch systems and space technology. This could rival the scale of investment in the mobile phone and internet technologies after they were unlocked from their military origins and thrown open to the private sector.” As long as these tourists don’t litter!

Art credit: gimp-savvy.com
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Not only is China polluting the earth, now it’s throwing trash into space as well.

A year ago, China intentionally destroyed its own aging weather spacecraft with an anti-satellite (ASAT) device, creating in the process a lingering cloud of dangerous space junk?the largest amount of orbital debris in five decades of worldwide space activities. In other words, they left so much litter in space that NASA had to execute a collision-avoidance maneuver with its spacecraft in order to evade it.
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