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Kessler syndrome - hundreds of thousands of tiny shards would explode at the point of impact ripping into other satellites and rendering them defunct (causing m
by xvector 6y ago
Kessler syndrome - hundreds of thousands of tiny shards would explode at the point of impact ripping into other satellites and rendering them defunct (causing more collisions). An exponential growth would occur which would result in Earth orbit being unusable. This might effectively lock use of Earth orbit away for centuries.
See the video by Kurzgesagt - “End of Space: Creating a Prison for Humanity.” [1]
[1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU https://youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU
- staticassertion 6y agoCan't wait to be boiled alive on this stupid planet because we filled space with garbage.
- ladberg 6y agoIf it makes you feel any better it's pretty much impossible to make Earth less habitable than anywhere else in a few light years, so I wouldn't worry about missing out on a space-paradise!
- TeMPOraL 6y agoModern economy: hold my beer and watch the exponent.
- larkeith 6y agoThrow enough nukes around and Europa might start to look a pleasant alternative.
- baq 6y agowell if we continue growing energy consumption 1% yoy, we boil off oceans in 400 years
- gus_massa 6y agoDO you have a source for this? I cant't find something for 2400, but from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_Pathway#Projections_based_on_the_RCPs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P... the prediction of the IPCC for 2300 is an increase of 3.0 to 12.6 °C that is really bad but by far not enough to start boiling the oceans.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- baq 6y agohttps://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ i heartily recommend the whole series. i made a mistake in the post before - the post assumes 2.3% yoy.
- srtjstjsj 6y agoThe article shows that 2.3% is an extreme upper bonnet because humanity has already lost its need of ability to generate 2.3% more growth per year. It's another case of people looking at a logistic graph and pretending it's exponential
- baq 6y agothat's the underlying theme of the series - it shows that exponential growth of economy is tied to exponential growth of energy consumption and it's something economists can't quite wrap their heads around.
- xvector 6y agoFrom my understanding of Kessler syndrome after reading more about it - only LEO would be locked out for a couple of centuries, even in a worst-case scenario. We should still be able to go beyond that with minimal repercussions. This is in conflict with the Kurzgesagt video. I wonder what their source was for the Kessler effect preventing excursions into space altogether.
- chillfox 6y agoHow exactly do you propose reaching higher orbits without going through LEO first?
- TeMPOraL 6y agoYou go through LEO, you just don't park there. Think direct insertion into higher-altitude orbits, in the style beginners in Kerbal Space Program do it - i.e. going straight up through LEO and only then turning sideways to gain orbital velocity. The risk will be much lower (you'll be spending very little time in the band filled with hypervelocity bullets), but it'll also be much more expensive. You'll need a much bigger rocket.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Cogito 6y agoHow do you get to the outer solar system without going through the asteroid belt? We don't worry about hitting an asteroid if going through the belt, because the density of objects is so low. If you wanted to stay in the asteroid belt you would have many more opportunities for a collision, so avoiding asteroids becomes a lot more important.
- vectorcrumb 6y agoNot an AE, but from my understanding of orbital mechanics, I think we usually use a LEO orbit to insert payloads into higher orbits or onto escape trajectories. Even Starship, which could be considered a next gen orbital vehicle, relies on LEO for reloading fuel before leaving Earth.
- mlang23 6y agoThis somehow reminds me of Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. Its not the same story of course, but I cant help but think of the book.
- xvector 6y agoI really enjoyed the first third of the book, the second third was decent too. I had to drop it when I got to the last third, it just became too boring.
- jlmorton 6y agoYeah, you didn't miss much. Fantastic book nonetheless.
- mlang23 6y agoSame here. I felt like the book could actually end after the remaining women decided on genetic manipulations. What followed thereafter was quite boring, and I stopped reading it as well. Actually sad, because the backstory is likely just preparation for what follows. But it was just too boring to go on. Prompted by a comment from someone yesterday, I actually replayed the Snow Crash audiobook in the evening. Comparing SC and SE I notice that SC feels quite juvenile. I didnt notice that as much when I first read it in my 20s. But these days, it feels a bit too much over the top. Contrary to that, SE somehow feels too grown up.
- j4nt4b 6y agoCompletely agree. He overwrote himself into a blind corner - wasted so much time describing the orbital mechanics of chains that my eyes rolled all the way up into the back of my head, completely spoiled any remote semblance of hard sci-fi he had going with the surprise Ur-Middle Earth origin story, and finally never justified all the self-indulgence with even a single word about the agent.
- iainmerrick 6y agoI haven’t read Seveneves, but that describes many Neal Stephenson novels. The Diamond Age is the clearest example for me -- brilliant beginning, with a really compelling setting; confused middle; terrible ending.
- brmgb 6y agoSpace is extremely large and mostly empty. People tend to misunderstand Kessler syndrome a lot because they build their idea on faulty representations. For example, if you go to the wikipedia article on Kessler syndrome, you will see an image where centimeters long debris are symbolised by kilometers wide dots. > This might effectively lock use of Earth orbit away for centuries. It would make exiting earth orbit and placing an object there significantly more complicated because you would need to take into account debris, probably detect them from the object and manoeuvre a lot more but it wouldn't entirely lock up use of Earth orbit. It would also be a solvable situation. Cleaning debris is doable.
- ppljudge 6y agoAgreed. There must be some illustration to give us a better idea of how vast the orbitable area is.
- yreg 6y agoKortila is asking why is a head-on colision worse than non-head-on.