Space debris may spark global conflicts

This must help EOS

http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/01/25/13/55/space-debris-could-lead-to-global-conflicts

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Half a million pieces of space junk could incite world conflicts, according to Russian scientists.
With more than 500,000 piece of debris dubbed "space junk" orbiting the Earth at speeds of more than 28,000 km/h, the likelihood of a catastrophic collision in space has become dangerously high.
The Guardian reported on a paper in the journal Acta Astronautica by Vitaly Adushkin at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow which states a collision between a government-owned craft and piece of space debris could provoke military action.
"Impacts from space junk, especially on military satellites, posed a ‘special political danger’ and may provoke political or even armed conflict between space-faring nations,” the report states.
"The owner of the impacted and destroyed satellite can hardly quickly determine the real cause of the accident.”
NASA reported that even the smallest pieces of space debris could potentially cause significant damage to orbital vehicles.
"There are more than 20,000 pieces of debris larger than a softball orbiting the Earth. They travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph (28,000 km/h), fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft,” NASA reported.
"There are 500,000 pieces of debris the size of a marble or larger. There are many millions of pieces of debris that are so small they can't be tracked.
"Even tiny paint flecks can damage a spacecraft when traveling at these velocities. In fact a number of space shuttle windows have been replaced because of damage caused by material that was analyzed and shown to be paint flecks.”
"The greatest risk to space missions comes from non-trackable debris," said NASA chief scientist for orbital debris, Nicholas Johnson.
In 1996, a French satellite was damaged by debris from a French rocket that had exploded a decade earlier.
On February 10, 2009, a decommissioned Russian satellite collided with and destroyed an operational US Iridium commercial satellite. The collision added more than 2000 pieces of trackable debris to the inventory of space junk.
In 2006 China used a missile to destroy an old weather satellite, subsequently adding more than 3000 pieces to the Earth's debris field.
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