Thu 27 Oct 2005 @19:07
Star light, star bright
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
…Oh darn, it’s a satellite!
One of the books I’m reading states that in the year 2000 there were 2698 man-made satellites orbiting the earth and about two-thirds of them were dead. All that junk that will eventually (or has recently) burn up as it falls back into our atmosphere. But it made me wonder how much more is up there now. So I went to the NASA website and found a Worldbook Encyclopedia entry:
The Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957. Since then, the United States and about 40 other countries have developed, launched, and operated satellites. Today, about 3,000 useful satellites and 6,000 pieces of space junk are orbiting Earth.
Hmm. Three times as much stuff in just five years. Still running about 2:1 junk to useful ratio. (No surprise there.) Is it me, or does it seem we can’t go anywhere without leaving a trail of trash?
Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh
October 29th, 2005 at 12:18
Comment comment comment. (In response to the Comment Whores Welcome random quote thing.)
And how do you do that? Inquiring minds want to know how to set up that random quote thing on our blogs so that we can be half as cool as you. Teach, O Yoda.
Comment comment comment.
October 30th, 2005 at 22:26
littering the universe? yeah, that sounds about right.
October 31st, 2005 at 21:22
Jenn, I think I got the original script from javascript.internet.com and then modified it. Take a look there and if you find one you like I can help you add it to your template. Maybe I’ll do a post about javascript one of these days.