I’ve heard that John Glenn, when asked what one of the most beautiful things he saw in space was, said “a urine dump”. Apparently they used to empty the urine oyut of the capsule, and the globs of water or ice refracted and reflected the sunlight beautifully.
Of course, urine will eventally evaporate in space, and not leave chunks flying around. I hadn’t heard about Soviet “space dumps”, but they could have been a source of such “orbital pollution” if they existed.
Seems like they could dump anything small, in space, as long as it’s in a rapidly decaying orbit. Into the atmosphere and POOF! 
One of the problems in building and maintaining aircraft and spacecraft is debris control. Everytime someone installs or replaces a part, there is a chance that they will leave behind wire clippings, screws, washers, tools, etc. On the ground, they may be hidden from visual inspection after they fall or roll into an out-of-the-way place. Take the vehicle into space, or perform aerobatics, and the debris can float out of its hiding places. This can result in equipment failure if the debris shorts out an electrical circuit or jams a mechanical device.
Silly, you’re thinking of paper clips. The adult form, in case anyone is wondering, is abandoned bicycles.
This is another minor watershed moment in environmental degradation.
Sailboat
Hardly. There’s been manmade junk orbiting the Earth for decades.
According to my sister, who works in this field (her doctoral thesis was concerned with orbiting debris etc and methods of tracking it), some of the most dangerous debris is “space turds” - they’re big enough to do serious damage but small enough that you can’t easily track them. Imagine a frozen Richard III coming through your windscreen at 24,000mph :eek:
Well, any sufficiently advanced civilization capable of observing us has probably ascertained by now that we have, in fact, marked our territory using the universal language of feces in orbit. 
Cue the clip of the American Indian in a space canoe with a tear coming down his cheek… 
It’d be a Moon Man in a flying saucer.
But here’s the thing, he’s not REALLY a Moon Man. He’s played by a Martian actor! :eek:
Someone pointed out that Earth on life may have been started by some alien astronaut poop that drifted our way. :eek:
I sort of pity the life that starts from *our * species’ poops.
As soon as I read that, I heard the music to the stabbing portion of the shower scene from Psycho. KnowhutImean? It was an instant of recognition of Absolute Truth.
So if I called someone a piece of shit I could be right :dubious:
People have been worrying about the “hose zone” layer for some time now.
Actually, it’s probably Matthew Looney and Chairman of the Moon R.T. Muss, talking with the other Moonsters in Crater Copernicus about how to handle the encroachment of the Earthers… so they send the Space Navy ship Feebey to the Hercules Globular Cluster…
There, that’s a reference obscure enough for the Straight Dope…
I know. It’s just that the plastic bag is sort of becoming an iconic piece of trash. Mid-pacific sailors don’t see human feces floating around, I don’t see space station bolts in my driveway; but we all see plastic bags.
Sailboat
Looks like a used condom to me. What “experiements” are they running up there, again?
Stranger
[Zap Brannigan] Why, sexy experiments, of course! [/Zap Brannigan]
