Air Force spends $7.5 million to research 'lunar traffic jams'
A new $7.5-million Air Force research initiative is exploring ways to prevent "lunar traffic jams" ahead of a new slate of manned missions to the moon, The Hill reported Wednesday.
The collaboration between the Air Force Research Laboratory and University of Arizona "will start by mapping the dozens of natural and human-made artifacts in the 'chaotic environment' of lunar orbit," The Hill reports.
Between the more than 50 missions to the moon planned for the next eight years and all the junk cluttering space, it's getting pretty crowded up there.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"The space debris problem is a mess," said Vishnu Reddy, an associate professor at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. "We've gone for 60-plus years of uncontrollably trashing everything in space, right? Imagine we had taken every car since the invention of the Model T, and every time the thing runs out of gas — you leave it to the side of the freeway and pick up a new car, wherever you drop it. That's what we've been doing to space."
The grant funds will be spent on spectroscopy experiments and AI tools that will enable the U.S. Space Force to more accurately identify and track objects orbiting the moon.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Grayson Quay was the weekend editor at TheWeek.com. His writing has also been published in National Review, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Modern Age, The American Conservative, The Spectator World, and other outlets. Grayson earned his M.A. from Georgetown University in 2019.
-
5 hilariously spirited cartoons about the spirit of Christmas
Cartoons Artists take on excuses, pardons, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Inside the house of Assad
The Explainer Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, ruled Syria for more than half a century but how did one family achieve and maintain power?
By The Week UK Published
-
Sudoku medium: December 22, 2024
The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
By The Week Staff Published
-
US won its war on 'murder hornets,' officials say
Speed Read The announcement comes five years after the hornets were first spotted in the US
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Dark energy data suggest Einstein was right
Speed Read Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity has been proven correct, according to data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
New DNA tests of Pompeii dead upend popular stories
Speed Read An analysis of skeletal remains reveals that some Mount Vesuvius victims have been wrongly identified
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
NASA's Europa Clipper blasts off, seeking an ocean
Speed Read The ship is headed toward Jupiter on a yearslong journey
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Detailed map of fly's brain holds clues to human mind
Speed Read This remarkable fruit fly brain analysis will aid in future human brain research
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipse
Speed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Melting polar ice is messing with global timekeeping
Speed Read Ice loss caused by climate change is slowing the Earth's rotation
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
An amphibian that produces milk?
speed read Caecilians, worm-like amphibians that live underground, produce a milk-like substance for their hatchlings
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published