I am sure that most of the people reading this know about
Sandra Bullock, George Clooney and the (literal) smash hit, GRAVITY. If you
don’t, then either go and see the movie or read a half dozen of the reviews.
You’ll find that it will most likely be one of the
contenders to beat in the 2013 movie awards. I’d love to add my raves, but I’m
going to restrain myself and talk about something else that occurred to me.
The accident, as anyone reading this will know, takes out a
space shuttle in the middle of a mission, the Hubble Telescope, the
International Space Station, and the Chinese Space Lab, Tiangong 1. As well, it
clears out most telecommunication satellites, cell phone relay satellites,
weather satellites, spy satellites...and just about any other satellite you
care to name.
So let’s go beyond GRAVITY. Beyond the spectacular ending
and the subtle and not-so-subtle symbolism Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón
imbue this movie with, a thought leaped into my head after some reflection.
Is this what
Humanity needs? I have a resounding answer as well: YES!
How so?
First of all, let me share the idea on which the movie
GRAVITY is predicated. Called the Kessler Syndrome, it is named after the NASA
scientist who first proposed it in 1978. Because every launch of every
satellite creates “junk” in Earth’s orbit, this space garbage has been
accumulating since October of 1957, when the old Soviet Union launched the
first artificial satellite. How does that number tote up today? “Currently, about 19,000 pieces of debris larger
than 5 cm (2.0 in) are tracked, with another 300,000 pieces smaller than
1 cm below 2000 km altitude.”[1] A Kessler event clears much of the space near Earth of operational satellites, crippling...well, just about everyone who uses a cell phone or any other form of communication on the planet.
At one point in
the movie, astronaut doctor Ryan Stone is drifting in silence and stumbles
across a radio broadcast – in AM. That’s all that’s left after the catastrophic
Kessler event. From here I'll jump to the very, very end of the movie, where
Humanity in the form of Sandra Bullock crawls out of the primordial ooze. I
will note that the location of said crawl out is not only significant, but is
the key to what happens next.
At this point in
the fictional movie’s history, rescue is not imminent. Despite queries to
indicate that at least some of Earth’s satellites are still active, no one is
really going to be able to figure out who was landing and where they landed.
Presumably the Chinese have some idea as they were the ones who programmed the landing
protocol of the Shenzhou reentry craft, though I don’t recall any Chinese radio
chatter…
Now what?
Dr. Stone is in
the middle of nowhere. She has to walk to get where she’s going.
Such a Kessler event
might so badly disable the Human psyche regarding our presence in space that we
never again send people there. Space exploration becomes a robotic endeavor
leading to ever more complex machines flying into space as Humanity pulls ever
more into itself until we no longer care about space except as a medium through
which to call each other long-distance, text about our bowel movements, find
ourselves when we take a wrong turn to grandma’s house, or want to know whether
or not to water the lawn tonight. This is certainly a possibility and we’ve
shown ourselves capable of such a reaction time and time again – turning back
from the future with our tail between our legs. This certainly happened after
Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Who knows – such may have been the Neanderthal’s
reaction to the discovery of fire.
Or a Kessler
event may precipitate a renaissance. With the orbital slate swept clean, we
might cooperate and send up a laser sweeper to finish the job chance started.
Once that clears the way – and the world is cowed by the catastrophic loss of texting,
bowel reports, grandmother visits, and lawn care – real money may fuel a race
back into space to not only reclaim what was lost, but make sure it never
happens again.
An international
space station more along the lines of the one in 2001: A Space Odyssey might grow quickly to oversee the orbital
cleanup, provide a long-term monitoring solution to the buildup of space
debris, create a true home of Humans in space, and create a new platform for
interplanetary exploration. An explosion of technology like this occurred after
WWII – why not in the wake of an Earth orbit tragedy?
It could do
either – and I’m pretty sure anyone reading this can guess which one I favor.
Anyone else have a thought?
Resource: http://mentalfloss.com/article/53047/10-things-know-about-gravity,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome,
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_debris
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