The number of spacecraft, rocket bodies, mission-related debris, and fragmentation debris orbiting the Earth has in- creased greatly since the beginning of the Space Age in 1957. The numbers of such debris larger than 10 cm are shown in Table 81 for various years.

Let n be the number (in thousands) of space debris at t years since 1960.
a. Construct a scatterplot by hand.
b. Draw a linear model on your scatterplot.
c. Use your model to estimate the number of space debris in 1995. Have you performed interpolation or extrapolation?
d. Use your model to estimate the number of space debris in 2010. Have you performed interpolation or extrapolation? Do you have much faith in your estimate? Explain.
e. The actual number of space debris in 2010 was 16.0 thousand. A huge number of space debris was caused by collisions of spacecraft in 2007 and 2009. Use the result you found in part (d) to help you estimate the number of space debris caused by the two collisions. Describe any assumptions you have made.

Transcribed Image Text:

Table 81 Numbers of Space Debris Number of Space Debris (thousands) 0.02 Year 1960 1970 1980 1990 5.5 7.5 9,8 10.2