Ben Shoemate's Notebook

If the combination of heavy drum music, a cacophony of dramatic infographic imagery, screen-facing people nervously talking in microphones, and a HD 1080p view of several high-speed orbital space objects colliding into each other is something you fancy, you should definitely check out the two movies below.

Lockheed Martin - How To [lockheedmartin.com] explains the concept of "Space Fence": a network of ground-based radars that detect, track, measure and catalog thousands of objects in low-Earth orbit. Expected to begin operation in 2015, the new system will replace the existing Air Force Space Surveillance System, which has been in service since 1960s. Using more sensitive sensors, the resulting database of space debris is expected to grow a tenth-fold from the current repository about 10-15,000 objects.

And if you think such a system implies various people watching some small screens with lists of numbers and dull graphics while not really exciting happens for days at end, you clearly have not yet watched the movie.

Information Is Beautiful has turned various astronomical numbers that relate to the U.S. debt into a set of short, animated movies that resemble a game of Tetris [informationisbeautiful.net].

Watching the movies, one can for instance contrast the cost of the Iraq war, the OPEC climate change fund, the US defense budget, all of the US overseas aid, and much more, with the total cost of the credit crisis to the world.

There is both a US and a UK version available, which you can watch below.