Space Junk

Image above: Flight Engineer Clay Anderson, at the end of the station's robotic arm, jettisons the Early Ammonia Servicer. Image credit: NASA TV

With a shove, a refrigerator-size piece of man-made trash slowly tumbles into space, never to be seen again.

It’s the perfect picture of our human habit.

1. Get something.
2. Keep it until it’s no good or we’re bored with it.
3. Find someplace to dump it where we won’t have to deal with it anymore.

We do it with space junk, and it flies off to oblivion or to land in the backyard of some poor Martian.

We do it with clothes, cars, cellphones, CDs, toys, furniture, TVs, gadgets and gizmos, fashions and fads.

We do it with relationships.

Most times, things and people disappear. Out of sight, out of mind. Sometimes, they stick in our memories for better or worse. Occasionally, they come back to haunt us or delight us.

But they never truly disappear, no matter what we may think.