On Lighting and Space Junk »
USA Today offers a piece that gives us a potential glimpse of our world in a few years - one where light bulbs are replaced by high-output LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes). You can already see this in many places, from car lights to street lights - but the jump has not yet been made to provide home lighting in this way. I think it sounds viable - and especially cool when you see that one day we can provide different colored light from the same panel, merely by changing the ratio of colors making up the light. That would be neat.
On the flip side of the coin, we see where our forays into space are simply cluttering up the skies. For whatever reason, I think of this often. Mostly, I suspect, because it's another example of where we just wander into the wilderness and junk up the place because we're too preoccupied with our "achievements" to think that we might be leaving a mess in our wake. I mean come on, people - there is a journal devoted to this mess we've made - isn't it time to consider perhaps picking up our trash, instead of just leaving it all behind? While the American Indian with the tear on his cheek 20-odd years ago failed to move us to pick up our highway trash, what will work here? I can't imagine that a little green alien will touch us any more deeply.
Comments (1)
All the space junk will not stay there forever. I would guess that a large percent will be back on earth in a decade or so.
In my case, the space junk doesn't bother me. I can't see and, unless I venture into space, it's no threat to me. The biggest threat is it taking out a communications satelite or a military one.
Posted by Ted on April 16, 2005 10:12 PM