The last major encounter between debris and something we cared about was in two thousand nine a dead russian satellite, cosmos, collided with us. The likelihood of that catastrophic event happening is really close to zero. But on the path that we're at, if we do nothing different, it will become that way, guaranteed. Eventually there'll be enough trash to whear that to the reality. We can actually facilitate, you know, global science and technology making a positive difference in humans lives by managing space itself.
Russia blew up a satellite and almost put the International Space Station in a precarious position. Recode’s Rebecca Heilweil explains how humans are trashing space. A space environmentalist (!) explains what cleanup might look like.
Today’s show was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained
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