Or: In Space, No One Can Hear You Take out the Trash

My family goes to a lot of movies. We're not film buffs, by any means. Usually, we're looking for snappy dialogue and explosions. A couple years ago, we saw the film “Gravity.” For those who haven't seen it, a runaway debris cloud destroys satellites and space stations. Even though the science in that movie was pretty badly off, in a lot of ways, something like it does have the potential to occur.

Kessler Syndrome is a hypothetical scenario dreamed up by a NASA scientist named Donald Kessler in the 70s. Essentially, it proposes that if enough objects are in low Earth orbit, collisions between them will eventually result in an enormous cascade of debris.

It's a pretty simple process: one piece of space junk slams into another, which sends debris scattering about. Some of that debris hits another piece of space junk, creating another burst of debris, which slams into more space junk, and then maybe into a satellite. Eventually, you have an enormous cloud of debris traveling through orbit. Each piece would be widely spaced, but even tiny bits can have insanely destructive power when moving that quickly. The cloud wouldn't take out every satellite, of course; it would stay in the same orbit, and many satellites would be in a higher or lower orbit.

A Kessler cascade could potentially make space travel impossible for millennia, completely blocking off that orbit. The debris wouldn't orbit forever. The drag from the miniscule amount of air at that altitude, along with a few other factors, would eventually clear the orbit again, though the process could take thousands of years.

Governments take the threat quite seriously. Satellites aren't allowed to launch unless they can be safely disposed at the end of their lifespans. The two most common techniques for doing so: dropping it back into the atmosphere or raising it up into a higher graveyard orbit. People also have proposed gadgets for clearing the debris, including a device called a laser broom, which is precisely as cool as it sounds.

It all really just goes to show: proper waste disposal is important, no matter where you are.

Dust Busting in Space

For all of the billions of dollars spent getting to the moon, and with all of the challenges NASA had to overcome getting there, one of the most aggravating problems didn't crop up until astronauts had already landed: moon dust.

Moon dust has a perfect storm of properties that’s an absolute nightmare to deal with. It's extremely fine grained, yet simultaneously abrasive, like someone ground up bits of sandpaper. The best way to think of moon dust is like powdered glass. It also has severe static cling, thanks to the solar wind continuously bombarding it, so it sticks to every bit of equipment—suits, lenses, you name it. Moon dust also gums up spacesuit joints, wears through layers, and gets all over habitats.

Part of the reason the stuff is so difficult to deal with is that it’s formed by meteor and micrometeoroid bombardments, unlike earth dust. Since there is no wind or water to erode the dust, it stays just as sharp as the day it was shattered off.

Moon dust even causes its own health condition, known as lunar hay fever, causing severe congestion and other problems. Long-term exposure to the dust could likely cause health problems very similar to silicosis.

That's not to say NASA hasn't been researching solutions for dealing with all that moon dust. Each grain contains a small fragment of metallic iron, which means that we can collect it with a magnet. The grains also melt quickly and easily with a microwave. One scientist even envisions placing microwaves on the front of lunar rovers, so that our astronauts could create “roads” as they travel.

The Moon hardly has a monopoly on dusty conditions. The dust on Mars is believed to be such a strong oxidizer that it can burn your skin, much like lye or bleach. Martian dust on your skin would leave burn marks.

Or: How I Chose Something Else

I like to keep a lot of houseplants around—it really helps make a house feel like a home.

Maggie used to give me a lot of guff about my taste in houseplants. She said that I could easily get a job as a hotel decorator because I had the same taste in plants. So, just to please her, I decided to pick up a couple flowers…orchids, in this case.

I'd avoided orchids for years, since I'd heard many stories about how difficult they are to keep. So, before I bought some orchid plants, I decided to do my research. And that’s when I stumbled across something incredibly weird.

There is an enormous black market for orchids. Seriously! Orchids are a multibillion-dollar market with a large percentage of that value being illegal.

Orchids have been wildly popular since the 1700s, largely due to their extreme variety. There are literally thousands and thousands of species, with new ones being discovered all the time. Some species go for incredible prices—one rare orchid species, The Gold of Kinabalu, sells for over five grand per stem on the black market. This one commands its high prices due to its unique appearance, its protection by the government of Malaysia, and the fact that the plants take 15 years to bloom.

Eventually, the extreme demand resulted in rare and delicate orchid species being driven extinct in the wild, all over the world.

Governments quickly began passing laws to prevent their smuggling from countries or harvesting by unauthorized personnel. But: since most of the countries involved merely punish offenders with fines—or short jail terms—at most, the legal threat isn’t a huge deterrent; potential profits are simply too large.

Some orchid species are being wiped out by orchid hunters before they even have a chance to be described by science.

I ended up going with a couple Cyclamen plants instead.