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I've often wondered something related to this, could a hostile nation ruin space orbit for everybody? What if a nation deliberately trashed space? Additionally

I've often wondered something related to this, could a hostile nation ruin space orbit for everybody? What if a nation deliberately trashed space? Additionally, I wonder if nations with things in orbit have also considered that possibility.

Klathmon 10y ago
Space is really really big. It would take a LOT of junk and a lot of money and time to ruin all orbits. Even LEO is at least as big as the surface of the earth, and getting debris to stay in that orbit for more than a few months takes thrusters to keep it from decaying.
- idlewords 10y ago
  You could do this pretty easily. All orbits at the same altitude eventually intersect, and high LEO orbits take decades or more to decay. Moreover, at orbital velocities, even tiny fragments can destroy a satellite. So if you fill an altitude range with enough orbiting shrapnel, you can ruin the party for everyone. The movie 'Gravity' has some breathtaking visuals of how such a runaway event would look.
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goodcanadian 10y ago
Indubitably. From the article: Collisions are rare, but half of all near-misses today are caused by debris from just two incidents. In 2007, China destroyed one of its own satellites with a ballistic missile. In 2009 an American commercial communications satellite collided with a defunct Russian weather satellite. There are only a handful of nations with the launch capabilities, but if any one of them wanted to ruin the party for everyone, they could probably accomplish it by hitting a few satellites with a few missiles. I don't imagine it would take very many destroyed satellites to create a serious debris hazard.
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jon_smark 10y ago
There was a recent thread on a sub-Reddit about using the threat of the Kessler Syndrome as deterrence: https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/62n21j/what_prevents_a_rogue_state_like_north_korea_from/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/62n21j/wha...

Klathmon 10y ago

Space is really really big. It would take a LOT of junk and a lot of money and time to ruin all orbits. Even LEO is at least as big as the surface of the earth, and getting debris to stay in that orbit for more than a few months takes thrusters to keep it from decaying.

idlewords 10y ago
You could do this pretty easily. All orbits at the same altitude eventually intersect, and high LEO orbits take decades or more to decay. Moreover, at orbital velocities, even tiny fragments can destroy a satellite. So if you fill an altitude range with enough orbiting shrapnel, you can ruin the party for everyone. The movie 'Gravity' has some breathtaking visuals of how such a runaway event would look.

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goodcanadian 10y ago

Indubitably. From the article: Collisions are rare, but half of all near-misses today are caused by debris from just two incidents. In 2007, China destroyed one of its own satellites with a ballistic missile. In 2009 an American commercial communications satellite collided with a defunct Russian weather satellite. There are only a handful of nations with the launch capabilities, but if any one of them wanted to ruin the party for everyone, they could probably accomplish it by hitting a few satellites with a few missiles. I don't imagine it would take very many destroyed satellites to create a serious debris hazard.

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jon_smark 10y ago

There was a recent thread on a sub-Reddit about using the threat of the Kessler Syndrome as deterrence: https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/62n21j/what_prevents_a_rogue_state_like_north_korea_from/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/62n21j/wha...