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The orbital debris problem mentioned at the end is really scary in the medium-long term. We're used to mistakes being relatively self correcting down here. A br
by 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
The orbital debris problem mentioned at the end is really scary in the medium-long term. We're used to mistakes being relatively self correcting down here. A bridge falls over, and it's terrible, but when it hits the ground, it's "stable" again. Then you can learn from your mistakes and try again. With orbital debris, on the other hand, if there was some day a chain reaction, could take ages to sufficiently deorbit, like a building that keeps falling for years or decades (or even generations! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome)
- inglor_cz 6y agoWe will need a cosmic vacuum cleaner one day.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- TrainedMonkey 6y agoWon't work because cosmos is mostly vacuum already :) But there are some neat tricks with lasers that can help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_broom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_broom When really scares me is how easy it would be for a malicious actor to kickstart the process. Imagine a cylinder filled with ball bearings painted black and an explosive device in the middle. Launch that to a mega-constellation altitude and at the very least that orbital altitude is no longer inhabitable.
- inglor_cz 6y agoCould perhaps ferromagnetic pieces be collected using a giant magnet?
- TrainedMonkey 6y agoYup, magnetic drag is a definitely a thing, see https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020SW002472 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202... . To have a real effect the magnet would need to be ginormous, specifically effectiveness would be proportional to a ratio of distance between magnet poles and the target object. The distance between poles is important because if both poles are equidistant to an object the net effect would be 0. So with that constraint in mind I doubt anything we can do at our current Kardashev scale can top Earths magnetic field. (Note the above is for a permanent magnet, it is possible that electromagnet would fare better. However given that magnetic force strength decays proportionally to distance squared, a magnet powerful enough to be effective would mess up real satellites too.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago> Won't work because cosmos is mostly vacuum already How else to clean a vacuum but with a vacuum cleaner? :-)
- TrainedMonkey 6y agoWith Newtons 3rd law :) You use opposite of a vacuum to decelerate the objects. I.E. shoot gas moving in other direction at them.
- Nexxius 6y agoThe ball bearings would suck for optical tracking but, most stuff is tracked by radar so the black paint really wouldn't do much more than add to the debris field as radiation would eventually cause it to flake off the metal and solar bleaching would turn it back to white.
- erwinh 6y agoLooking to create my own dent in the awareness of this with https://space-search.io https://space-search.io
- ianai 6y agoI wonder how the Starlink satellites affect this? Are they appropriately mitigating their EOL?
- scrumbledober 6y agostarlink sats are in a particularly low orbit, so they will reenter within a couple of years.
- ianai 6y agoThat just makes this distinction more important as the potential scale of fall out is greater.
- joshmarlow 6y agoAs a tangent, that's something that I found interesting and understated about the movie "Gravity". You get drawn into the story of the main character, but in the background you're seeing the end of human access to space (at least for the foreseeable future).