The Sound of Silence

Conn Carroll / February 23, 2009

On February 10th of this year a U.S. satellite that was part of the Iridium global communications network suddenly went silent. A dead Russian satellite had smashed into the U.S. satellite sending space debris everywhere.

While the media treated the incident like a road accident, the story should serve as a cautionary tale about how incredibly dependent modern life is on space. Heritage fellow James Carafarano writes in the DC Examiner:

For Americans, a day without space would look an awful lot like life in the 19th century.

For starters, you could kiss air travel goodbye. Today’s commercial flights are almost wholly dependent on Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation. And the GPS system is dependent on satellites.

Your morning weather report would be almost worthless without the feeds from space-based weather satellites. And, in most cases, your cell phone, credit cards, and ATM wouldn’t work very well without the space-based communications that support them.

Indeed, the entire global supply chain might grind to a halt. The shelves at the local Wall Mart would start looking bare very quickly. (more…)