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Space travel is the most exciting and challenging adventure humanity has ever undertaken.
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But in an irony
of history,
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we may stop ourselves from going
into space the more we do it.
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With every
rocket launched
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and with every
satellite deployed,
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we're creating a trap for ourselves that gets
deadlier and more dangerous every year.
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If it's ever activated,
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it could end the Space Age
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and trap us
on our planet for decades,
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or even centuries.
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Getting something into space
is incredibly hard.
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To do so, you need
to move very, very fast.
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At first, straight up
to leave the atmosphere,
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then sideways to begin
a sort of circling around the Earth,
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still, very, very fast.
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If you do that successfully
you can enter a Low Earth orbit.
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And once in orbit,
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it's very hard
to get out of orbit.
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Unless you have
energy to spare,
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you're sort of locked in here,
falling around the Earth forever.
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That's great for things
we want to stay up,
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like space stations
and satellites.
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And so we moved the majority of humanity's
space infrastructure to this place,
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just a few hundred kilometers
above the surface.
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Just high enough
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so that the atmosphere
is so thin,
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that orbiting things
can stay up for centuries
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before air resistance can slow them
enough to bring them back to Earth.
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But this is also the source
of our deadly trap.
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Rockets are really metal cylinders
that keep big parts of fuel in place.
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Whenever a portion
of the fuel has been spent,
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the empty tanks are dropped
to make the rocket lighter.
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Some parts
crash down to earth
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or burn up
in the atmosphere.
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But most of the useless
rocket parts stay up
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and begin
to orbit the planet.
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After decades
of space travel
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low Earth orbit
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is a junkyard of spent boosters,
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broken satellites and millions
of pieces of shrapnel
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from missile tests
and explosions.
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Right now we know of around
2,600 defunct satellites,
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10,000 objects bigger
than a monitor,
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20,000 as large
as an apple,
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500,000 pieces
the size of a marble
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and at least 100 million parts
so small they can't be tracked.
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This debris is moving
at speeds of up to 30,000 km/h,
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circling Earth on criss-
crossing orbits multiple times a day.
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Orbital speeds are so fast
that being hit by debris
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the size of a pea is like
being shot by a plasma gun.
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On impact the debris
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vaporises, releasing enough energy
to punch holes straight through solid metal.
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So, we've covered the space around our planet with millions of deadly pieces of destruction,
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and we also put a trillion dollar
global infrastructure network
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right in the danger zone.
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It performs critical duties
essential to the modern world:
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global communication,
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GPS
and navigation,
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collecting weather data,
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looking out
for asteroids
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and all manner
of scientific discoveries:
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things we would miss very much
if they suddenly went away.
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If just one pea-sized bullet
hits one of our
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1,100 working satellites,
it will be destroyed instantly.
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Three or four satellites are already
being destroyed this way every year.
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As the number of satellites and the amount of junk in orbit is expected to grow tenfold in the next decade,
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we're approaching
a tipping point.
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But the worst thing in space
is not tiny pieces of junk.
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The worst thing would be
an unstoppable chain reaction
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that turns a lot of non junk things
into junk. For example:
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if two satellites hit each other
in just the right way.
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If satellites collide
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they don't stop
and fall out of the sky.
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It's more of a splash
than a crash.
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Orbital speeds
are so fast
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solid pieces spray
right through each other,
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transforming the two satellites
into clouds of thousands of little things
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still fast enough
to destroy more satellites.
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This could trigger the slowest
and most destructive sort of domino effect:
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a collision cascade.
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Like a shotgun spray,
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each collision
creates more bullets.
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What was once
a single tiny target
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very unlikely to hit anything becomes
a wall of destruction
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hungry
to make more.
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As more and more satellites
are destroyed
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the destruction
accelerates exponentially,
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eventually destroying
everything parked in orbit.
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But space
is very empty,
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so the first few collisions
may take a long time.
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By the time we realize
what's happening, it's too late.
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One year one satellite
is destroyed
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and that's
no big deal.
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The next year, five.
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The year after, 50.
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Until there's nothing left.
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The situation in orbit
is rapidly worsening
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and we may already
be past the point of no return.
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Within 10 years space around Earth may no longer
be viable for long term satellites or rockets.
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The worst case scenario
is horrifying.
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A debris field made of hundreds
of millions of pieces,
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many too small to track,
moving at 30,000 km/h.
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It would effectively create
a deadly barrier around Earth, possibly too dangerous
to cross.
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Dreams
of moon bases,
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Mars colonies
or space travel at all
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may be
set back centuries.
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And the loss
of our space infrastructure
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would send some of the technology
we rely on daily back to the 1970s.
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But it might not be too late
to clean up our mess.
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While the space industry has become
better at avoiding space junk,
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it's still growing fast and occasional
weapon tests don't help.
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So there have been a couple of wild
but also serious suggestions.
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About how to quickly remove
as much deadly space junk as possible
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without creating more
in the process.
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Lots of ideas
are being thrown around,
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and some
of the most seriously considered
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involve capture
and return missions,
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which are
being tested now.
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One method involves meeting a piece of junk
in orbit with a small satellite and loaded with a net.
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Once caught,
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a small rocket could be used
to bring it down towards Earth.
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Targets too large for a net might be instead caught
with a harpoon on a tether.
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Instead of firing
a rocket
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the cleaner would deploy a large sail
to produce atmospheric drag
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and accelerate
orbital decay.
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And there are lots of other wild sci-fi
sounding proposals too.
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Some might use
giant electromagnets.
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These magnetic tugs
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work by pushing on
the magnetic components inside satellites
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that they use
to stabilize
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and orientate themselves
in Earth's magnetic field.
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These may be safer and more reliable
than nets and harpoons
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because they never have to make contact
with the junk they're handling,
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so there's no risk of accidentally breaking up
their target into more junk.
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As for the tiniest bits of junk,
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lasers might be the key
to vaporising them entirely.
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Satellites with lasers wouldn't
need to visit their targets.
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They can shoot them
from far away.
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Large objects
can't exactly be shot down,
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but lasers
can be used to ablate them,
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or burn tiny amounts
of material off the side
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to push the junk
to a safer orbit.
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Whatever technology we use at the end,
we better start doing something soon,
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before 100 million bullets become
a trillion and the trap is set.
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If we don't act,
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our adventure
in space
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might end before
it's even begun.
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If our days of dreaming about space exploration
might be numbered anyway
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we better put them
to good use.
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One of the things we most like to spend our time on
is learning more about our universe.
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And to do that
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you can just keep watching.
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Kurzgesagt and Brilliant
are collaborating on a six-part video series
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00:07:51,660 --> 00:07:54,060
about our favorite science
and space topics.
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00:07:54,960 --> 00:07:57,100
Kurzgesagt has worked
with Brilliant for a bit.
156
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And we love how they teach you science
and maths in a practical way.
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By guiding you through problems
step by step.
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So you can actually understand
the concepts behind them.
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And maybe one day
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use your knowledge
on problems like space junk.
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00:08:09,560 --> 00:08:11,900
Or at least your science projects to start with.
162
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If you'd like even more edutainment.
163
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Go to brilliant.org/nutshell
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00:08:16,860 --> 00:08:18,480
and sign up for free.
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The first 688 people
to use the link
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get their annual premium membership
at a 20% discount!
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And also support
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