ralph.ewig — Big Brothers - is an interesting info-graphic...

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$Big Brothers - is an interesting info-graphic showing data on all man-made objects orbiting the Earth. For any given country, the size of the circle represents the number of objects in space. The white area shows functional satellites, the light gray area is for objects no longer in service, and lastly the size of the black circle indicates the amount of orbital debris (spacejunk) attributed to a given nation. While the US still maintains the largest number of functional spacecraft, it is also responsible for the largest amount of space debris. It is interesting to note that Russia and China are tied for second place in the total number of objects; however China has a much larger fraction of space debris, whereas Russia’s number of dysfunctional spacecraft far outpaces that of China and the US combined. What strikes me the most in looking at this chart is the amazing diversity of nations now engaged in space activities, with strong growth in Asia and India.$ Zoom

Big Brothers - is an interesting info-graphic showing data on all man-made objects orbiting the Earth. For any given country, the size of the circle represents the number of objects in space. The white area shows functional satellites, the light gray area is for objects no longer in service, and lastly the size of the black circle indicates the amount of orbital debris (spacejunk) attributed to a given nation.

While the US still maintains the largest number of functional spacecraft, it is also responsible for the largest amount of space debris. It is interesting to note that Russia and China are tied for second place in the total number of objects; however China has a much larger fraction of space debris, whereas Russia’s number of dysfunctional spacecraft far outpaces that of China and the US combined.

What strikes me the most in looking at this chart is the amazing diversity of nations now engaged in space activities, with strong growth in Asia and India.