"We have to learn how to live in our own filthy bathwater at this point."
Dr. Moriba Jah's words were hardly reassuring — but, then again, he was not trying to be. An associate professor at The University of Texas at Austin's Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Department, I'd asked Jah what it would take for Earth's skies to be clear again for astronomers. As many stargazers will tell you, there are so many satellites and chunks of man-made debris in orbit around the Earth that it is difficult to observe the wonders of the universe without distraction. Before the Soviet Union launched humanity's first artificial satellite (Sputnik) in 1957, this so-called "space junk" literally did not exist. Now it is so prevalent that Jah bluntly informed Salon the days in which Earth-dwellers could gaze at a pure night sky are forever "over..." "It's like plastics in the ocean," Jah continued. "Just like we'll never have pristine oceans, we'll never have pristine land. It's done."
