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Limiting Future Collision Risk to Spacecraft An Assessment of NASA's Meteoroid and Orbital Debris Programs (2011) / Chapter Skim
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13 Preparing for the Future
Pages 91-93

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From page 91...
... and W Welser, IV, Confronting Space Debris: Strategies and Warnings from Comparable Examples Including Deepwater Horizon, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, 2011, available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1042.html, accessed July 5, 2011; Macauley, M.K., "In Pursuit of a Sustainable Space Environment: Economic Issues in Regulating Space Debris," Chapter 18 in Preservation of Near-Earth Space for Future Generations, John A
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From page 92...
... Shielding, debris avoidance maneuvers, and other efforts to avoid debris impact increase the cost of spacecraft design and operation. Similarly, actions taken to avoid genera tion of debris, such as the use of lanyards, venting of residual fuel, and moving spacecraft into graveyard orbits, also impose design and operating costs that are usually expressed in terms of mass, fuel, and lifetime penalties.
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From page 93...
... re placement cost, insurance premiums, and other measures of the cost incurred to protect a spacecraft understate the full cost to society as a whole if that spacecraft, damaged by a meteoroid or orbital debris, itself generates debris that then creates potential harm to other spacecraft. Recommendation: NASA should lead public discussion of the space debris problem to emphasize debris as a long-term concern for society that must continue to be addressed today.
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Key Terms

  • debris impact
  • debris population
  • space debris
  • debris removal
  • active debris

  • future generations
  • debris requires
  • replacement cost
  • insured spacecraft
  • spacecraft replacement

  • economic issues
  • future consequences
  • future debris
  • space mission
  • sustainable space

  • confronting space
  • future orbital
  • debris impacting
  • economic consequences
  • potential economic

  • managing space
  • economic harm
  • regulating space
  • economic cost
  • strophic debris

  • future physical
  • future investment
  • economic damage
  • addressing orbital
  • enhance space


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