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I worry about the precedents being created. There is little in the way of other companies or governments adding more to Earth’s orbit. Eventually there could be
by Mobius01 7y ago
I worry about the precedents being created. There is little in the way of other companies or governments adding more to Earth’s orbit. Eventually there could be enough objects there that one single incident could cause a chain reaction and blanket Earth on debris making launches dangerous or impossible.
- kylek 7y agoThis has a name! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
- tialaramex 7y agoNote that although this sort of event would make LEO unusable, which isn't good - it would _not_ actually do several things commonly portrayed in fiction alongside that. It wouldn't prevent leaving the Earth, passing through LEO after a Kessler event wouldn't be unreasonably dangerous because you're not there for long. This means you could still go to the Moon, or to Mars, if you've got any reason to do so. It wouldn't prevent us putting satellites into higher orbits, in particular the GEO communications satellites are so ludicrously much further up than LEO that to say Kessler would inhibit GEO is as if you imagined that a blocked storm drain in your street might lead to Mount Everest being covered by the rising water.
- Apocryphon 7y agoFiction may have imagined doomsday scenarios, but it has also envisioned the solution to them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes
- bpodgursky 7y agoAll the SpaceX satellites are in LEO, low enough that even in the absolute worst case scenario (which, FWIW, is not realistic), they will all de-orbit in a couple years.
- Uhuhreally 7y agoand they will be replaced after that
- Rebelgecko 7y agoThat is technically true for this batch of satellites. However at the next shell out that they're planning on using (1150km) it can take a really long time for an orbit to decay (decades or centuries depending on the size of the thing). There's still radioactive crap in orbit from Soviet satellites that were orbiting at 900km more than 40 years ago.
- nickik 7y agoAll of these automatically fly themselves to destruction. So we are really only talking about a few defect ones. Once we are launch 1000s of satellites we are defiantly going to have servicing satellites out there. Refueling, orbital maneuvers and so on. Even in the worst case, decades is still not that crazy. The locations are known and can be avoid. This is a problem, but really not any kind of gigantic issue that should stop progress.