Last week astronauts aboard the International Space Station hustled themselves into a Russian space capsule as protection from some errant space junk. Orbiting the Earth at approximately 17,500 mph nearly any object can cause catastrophic damage. Tonight another alert! A cloud of 300 odd pieces of debris from an ill-fated 1981 Russian satellite will be in the neighborhood.

"NASA kept close tabs on an old piece of space junk Monday that threatened to come too close to the international space station as the shuttle Discovery raced toward the orbiting outpost for a 220-mile-high linkup."

What's the deal? Why has space become so much more dangerous?

Though space itself is limitless, satellite are forced into specific and very limited areas close to the Earth. The math is a little weighty for me, but Johannes Kepler had this stuff figured out back in the pre-calculator 1600s. The US, Russia and now the Chinese haven't been particularly diligent in keeping the area clean. The flotsam and jetsam of decades of space launches is getting more and more dense.

Just yesterday the Christian Science Monitor reported:

"Currently, the US Air Force Space Command is tracking some 18,000 to 19,000 objects larger than about 4 inches that are orbiting Earth. Some specialists estimate that another 500,000 to 700,000 objects out there are smaller than 4 inches.

Of the large objects, around 900 are satellites zipping around the Earth. Roughly 45 percent of these do so in low-Earth orbit, between 100 and 1,200 miles out. This leads to hundreds if not thousands of close approaches, or conjunctions, each day."

It's not getting any better. It's not going to get any better. There are proposals for a space code of conduct, but it's a code not a rule--no teeth at all

If you want to see how this sometimes plays out there are some amazing simulations courtesy of AGI that depict the February 10th collision of Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 high above Siberia. These are worth the download time.

Along with being the company that created some of the best Santa tracking videos in the business, AGI's more serious side includes their Center for Space Standards & Innovation (CSSI) which produced these animations.

Alas, all the debris caused by the February crash is dwarfed by what's up their orbiting aimlessly already. It's a jungle up there!