Debris poses a clear, present and growing danger to space operations. The latest wake-up call to take steps to address this danger was provided by the Feb. 10 collision between a dead Cosmos satellite and a revenue-producing Irid-ium satellite. This dreaded event may have produced the second worst debris field in the history of the space age. Debris travels at 10 times the speed of a rifle bullet at altitudes where hundreds of satellites used for intelligence gathering, personal communications and Earth observation operate. If a single piece of debris the size of a child's marble strikes one of these satellites, the international space station or the space shuttle it would strike with the equivalent force of a 1 ton safe dropped from a five-story building.
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