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By the end of this century, the amount of debris in the orbit now occupied by
the International Space Station could make it dangerous for crewed flight,
according to computer simulations presented by Donald Kessler and Philip
Anz-Meador to the Third European Conference on Space Debris in Darmstadt,
Germany. More than 100,000 fragments of junk between 1 and 10 centimetres across
are already stuck in orbit. The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee
is expected to push for the UN to force countries to cut down on space junk by
2004.