4 ms·

Imagine an area of the size of surface of the earth. Put 30k objects of the size of motorcycle on it. There are currently something like 200 million motorcycles

by xyzzyz 7y ago

Imagine an area of the size of surface of the earth. Put 30k objects of the size of motorcycle on it. There are currently something like 200 million motorcycles in the world. Seems like plenty of space, doesn't it? But wait, you don't actually need to restrict yourself to one spherical surface. You can place your 30k sattelites anywhere in a Earth's-surface-sized spherical shell that's 400 miles thick. You could literally put those 30k sattelites in a single straight line above some point on the earth, and still have 350 miles of shell thickness left. Congestion on low Earth orbits is really a non issue, especially if the satellites are designed to deorbit after their useful lifetime.

CamperBob2 7y ago
Difficulty: the motorcycles are moving at 20,000 miles an hour. And if two of them ever collide, not only will the motorcycles be totaled, but so will the road.
Spinosaurus 7y ago
I should have been more clear. By "congestion", I was not just considering the number of satellites, but the number of artificial objects in total regardless of size, which by many estimates is in the millions.
- gpm 7y ago
  Which makes it even clearer that this isn't an issue... we're not adding 3000%, we're adding 1% (assuming "millions" = 3 million).
ygjb 7y ago
Surely you have something to back this up other than a super weak analogy? Lets pick your assumption apart - there are 200 million motorcycles in the world, but there are only an esitmated 35 million km of roads. That means there are approximately 175 meters of road per motorcycle. That seems pretty reasonable, even if they were all on the road at the same time. But they aren't alone - there are also approximately a billion vehicles. That takes it down to about 35 meters per vehicle. Thats without factoring in the loss in space for intersections, the drop in capacity at each of those intersections, or addressing the fact that most of those vehicles are clustered in high density urban areas. Now we are lucky that not all of those vehicles are on all of those roads at the same time, because they can be removed and parked. It is certainly possible to overlay orbits at different altitudes, but then you have to manage spectrum congestion, because those 30k satellites in a straight line above some point on the earth are useless unless they can actually communicate with ground stations. Not all orbital slots are created equal either - some have better coverage of human habitable areas than others. Oh, and there is the small matter that each time one of those 30k satellite degrades, it becomes between two and hundreds of thousands of devastating fast moving particles that can destroy other satellites (don't believe me? look up the number of windows that have been destroyed by paint flecks in orbit). Don't take my word for it, read up on NASA's articles and quarterly publications on orbital congestion.

by xyzzyz 7y ago

CamperBob2 7y ago

Difficulty: the motorcycles are moving at 20,000 miles an hour. And if two of them ever collide, not only will the motorcycles be totaled, but so will the road.

Spinosaurus 7y ago

I should have been more clear. By "congestion", I was not just considering the number of satellites, but the number of artificial objects in total regardless of size, which by many estimates is in the millions.

gpm 7y ago
Which makes it even clearer that this isn't an issue... we're not adding 3000%, we're adding 1% (assuming "millions" = 3 million).

ygjb 7y ago

Surely you have something to back this up other than a super weak analogy? Lets pick your assumption apart - there are 200 million motorcycles in the world, but there are only an esitmated 35 million km of roads. That means there are approximately 175 meters of road per motorcycle. That seems pretty reasonable, even if they were all on the road at the same time. But they aren't alone - there are also approximately a billion vehicles. That takes it down to about 35 meters per vehicle. Thats without factoring in the loss in space for intersections, the drop in capacity at each of those intersections, or addressing the fact that most of those vehicles are clustered in high density urban areas. Now we are lucky that not all of those vehicles are on all of those roads at the same time, because they can be removed and parked. It is certainly possible to overlay orbits at different altitudes, but then you have to manage spectrum congestion, because those 30k satellites in a straight line above some point on the earth are useless unless they can actually communicate with ground stations. Not all orbital slots are created equal either - some have better coverage of human habitable areas than others. Oh, and there is the small matter that each time one of those 30k satellite degrades, it becomes between two and hundreds of thousands of devastating fast moving particles that can destroy other satellites (don't believe me? look up the number of windows that have been destroyed by paint flecks in orbit). Don't take my word for it, read up on NASA's articles and quarterly publications on orbital congestion.