7 ms·

As far as I understand this actually would be a catastrophe. One collision creates a lot of debris, which then again increases the probability of further collis

As far as I understand this actually would be a catastrophe. One collision creates a lot of debris, which then again increases the probability of further collisions and so on. You have an exponentially increasing probability of further collisions once you have one. In the worst case this could make rocket launches and satellites in orbit impossible.

thih9 5y ago
I think what GP meant is that this kind of catastrophe (i.e. worst case not being able to make rocket launches or use the orbit) is still better than an asteroid crashing into the earth and perhaps causing an extinction event.
- nautilius 5y ago
  Sure, anything is less catastrophic than an extinction event. Where's your threshold? Tsunami in Indonesia? Tsunami in Fukushima? Hurricane Katrina? Do those count as catastrophes? The problem isn't that we're no longer able to launch new rockets - it's that anything in space comes to a standstill when it gets destroyed. How about GPS is suddenly no longer usable, with planes in flight and ships somewhere on the ocean? Weather satellites allow no more observation, with no more forewarning for hurricanes, and no reliable planning of routes by either plane or ship. What will be the impact of both on modern agriculture? No more satellite based communication, etc.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    We will find fallbacks. Humanity as a species is surprisingly resilient. > How about GPS is suddenly no longer usable, with planes in flight and ships somewhere on the ocean? Anything over land can be replaced by antennas sending out a signal from a known location, and receivers can triangulate their position from that. In-flight planes can use landmark plus compass based navigation, as well as (already existing) ground based navigation beacons, and pilots are trained on how to deal with all instruments gone dark scenarios. Ships can sail along land and use sextant navigation on the open seas (actually, the US Navy re-introduced training sailors in sextant use in 2016, to account for a no-electronics scenario!). > Weather satellites allow no more observation, with no more forewarning for hurricanes, and no reliable planning of routes by either plane or ship. The worst loss will be for everything over the open sea, but land based weather documentation will still be possible. > What will be the impact of both on modern agriculture? Not too much, technically we can gather everything agriculture needs from the ground, it's just way more effective and cheaper to observe from space. > No more satellite based communication, etc. That would not be a big loss, there exist (long forgotten outside of amateur radio) technologies to deal with that.
    - macintux 5y ago
      You’re correct that all of these are addressable in isolation, given time, with some loss of utility. However, if we experience a catastrophic problem in space, we’ll have to deal with all of them simultaneously, with extreme time pressures.
      - mschuster91 5y ago
        The scenarios where losing GPS would cause immediate issues (naval and air transport) have built in that possibility in their training for ages.
    - nautilius 5y ago
      I don’t know what straw man you’re destroying here, no one claims humans will go extinct without spaceflight. But without any doubt the loss of all space flight will have a major impact on how humanity organizes trade, communications, travel, agriculture, intelligence, war/peace, science. And sure, ‘solutions’ will be found. Here’s another one for your list that will diminish the impact of the loss of weather satellites: just strap someone to a weather balloon and have them draw what they see, and drop those drawings until the person runs out of oxygen. Is it as powerful/convenient as what we have today? Hardly.
  - thih9 5y ago
    > Where's your threshold? I meant world scale extinction event like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous–Paleogene_extinction_event https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous–Paleogene_extinct... . A layer of sediment literally everywhere, etc.
    - nautilius 5y ago
      Well then I guess in your view no human has ever experienced a catastrophe. One may think many people will disagree (me for example). How do you call, say, a disease that kills half of all humans? An inconvenience?
      - thih9 5y ago
        I think you misunderstood? See earlier discussion. Specifically: > Of course, it could be "catastrophic" too, but there is catastrophe, and then there is catastrophe...
        nautilius 5y ago
        I did not. I specifically asked you for your threshold between catastrophe and catastrophe.
headmelted 5y ago
For anyone that didn’t know, this is essentially the premise of the movie Gravity.
- mLuby 5y ago
  Gravity strikes a good balance between realism and getting the point across to orbital-mechanics-unsavvy audiences.
  - thatswrong0 5y ago
    I mean, it definitely showed how fast and destructive space debris can be. But I wouldn't say it really achieved a significant amount realism.
    - mLuby 5y ago
      and that the debris is a cloud, and that it comes around again (which is very non-intuitive for us—explosions and shrapnel generally don't hit from the same direction more than once)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
MichaelZuo 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome The degree of exponential growth is still in question but the fact that it will be exponential, and will cause a huge headache eventually if left unchecked is pretty much accepted. However, enforcement would run into the same problem that enforcing any resource in the international commons runs into, such as overfishing, oceanic/atmospheric pollution, etc. Since it requires coordinated collective action of every space launching nation, it would require something like the UN security council to really punish nations that defect from the agreed upon program. which opens another can of worms.
- pohl 5y ago
  Your last sentence is depressing. We can't even muster enough e pluribus unum to combat a pandemic within the one nation that holds that motto on its great seal.
  - khuey 5y ago
    Dealing with space debris doesn't require individual action from hundreds of millions of people though. It requires the governments of eleven countries with orbital launch capabilities (counting the ESA as one) to work together.
    - bt1a 5y ago
      I'm not convinced that the latter is any easier than the former.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ycombobreaker 5y ago
      11 Countries? The UN Security Council has five permanent members and they don't always work together (any one of the five can veto resolutions against its own exonomic interest).
arglebarglegar 5y ago
maybe we need something like this to learn how to be more careful before launching garbage everywhere we go
- ngcc_hk 5y ago
  The question at stake is that there is no we here. Of course you can use the pronoun. But it does reflect the reality. And one trap here is we must have a we. The old way is to say it must be a collective joint action is not right. There is a reason why we have carbon tax, which is a market solution to a commons issue. Not I am saying you can do that. But individual countries as individuals should be an option. Sometimes there is no we. We may want to no we as well sometimes ;-)

thih9 5y ago

I think what GP meant is that this kind of catastrophe (i.e. worst case not being able to make rocket launches or use the orbit) is still better than an asteroid crashing into the earth and perhaps causing an extinction event.

nautilius 5y ago
Sure, anything is less catastrophic than an extinction event. Where's your threshold? Tsunami in Indonesia? Tsunami in Fukushima? Hurricane Katrina? Do those count as catastrophes? The problem isn't that we're no longer able to launch new rockets - it's that anything in space comes to a standstill when it gets destroyed. How about GPS is suddenly no longer usable, with planes in flight and ships somewhere on the ocean? Weather satellites allow no more observation, with no more forewarning for hurricanes, and no reliable planning of routes by either plane or ship. What will be the impact of both on modern agriculture? No more satellite based communication, etc.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  We will find fallbacks. Humanity as a species is surprisingly resilient. > How about GPS is suddenly no longer usable, with planes in flight and ships somewhere on the ocean? Anything over land can be replaced by antennas sending out a signal from a known location, and receivers can triangulate their position from that. In-flight planes can use landmark plus compass based navigation, as well as (already existing) ground based navigation beacons, and pilots are trained on how to deal with all instruments gone dark scenarios. Ships can sail along land and use sextant navigation on the open seas (actually, the US Navy re-introduced training sailors in sextant use in 2016, to account for a no-electronics scenario!). > Weather satellites allow no more observation, with no more forewarning for hurricanes, and no reliable planning of routes by either plane or ship. The worst loss will be for everything over the open sea, but land based weather documentation will still be possible. > What will be the impact of both on modern agriculture? Not too much, technically we can gather everything agriculture needs from the ground, it's just way more effective and cheaper to observe from space. > No more satellite based communication, etc. That would not be a big loss, there exist (long forgotten outside of amateur radio) technologies to deal with that.
  - macintux 5y ago
    You’re correct that all of these are addressable in isolation, given time, with some loss of utility. However, if we experience a catastrophic problem in space, we’ll have to deal with all of them simultaneously, with extreme time pressures.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      The scenarios where losing GPS would cause immediate issues (naval and air transport) have built in that possibility in their training for ages.
  - nautilius 5y ago
    I don’t know what straw man you’re destroying here, no one claims humans will go extinct without spaceflight. But without any doubt the loss of all space flight will have a major impact on how humanity organizes trade, communications, travel, agriculture, intelligence, war/peace, science. And sure, ‘solutions’ will be found. Here’s another one for your list that will diminish the impact of the loss of weather satellites: just strap someone to a weather balloon and have them draw what they see, and drop those drawings until the person runs out of oxygen. Is it as powerful/convenient as what we have today? Hardly.
- thih9 5y ago
  > Where's your threshold? I meant world scale extinction event like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous–Paleogene_extinction_event https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous–Paleogene_extinct... . A layer of sediment literally everywhere, etc.
  - nautilius 5y ago
    Well then I guess in your view no human has ever experienced a catastrophe. One may think many people will disagree (me for example). How do you call, say, a disease that kills half of all humans? An inconvenience?
    - thih9 5y ago
      I think you misunderstood? See earlier discussion. Specifically: > Of course, it could be "catastrophic" too, but there is catastrophe, and then there is catastrophe...
      - nautilius 5y ago
        I did not. I specifically asked you for your threshold between catastrophe and catastrophe.

headmelted 5y ago

For anyone that didn’t know, this is essentially the premise of the movie Gravity.

mLuby 5y ago
Gravity strikes a good balance between realism and getting the point across to orbital-mechanics-unsavvy audiences.
- thatswrong0 5y ago
  I mean, it definitely showed how fast and destructive space debris can be. But I wouldn't say it really achieved a significant amount realism.
  - mLuby 5y ago
    and that the debris is a cloud, and that it comes around again (which is very non-intuitive for us—explosions and shrapnel generally don't hit from the same direction more than once)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

MichaelZuo 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome The degree of exponential growth is still in question but the fact that it will be exponential, and will cause a huge headache eventually if left unchecked is pretty much accepted. However, enforcement would run into the same problem that enforcing any resource in the international commons runs into, such as overfishing, oceanic/atmospheric pollution, etc. Since it requires coordinated collective action of every space launching nation, it would require something like the UN security council to really punish nations that defect from the agreed upon program. which opens another can of worms.

pohl 5y ago
Your last sentence is depressing. We can't even muster enough e pluribus unum to combat a pandemic within the one nation that holds that motto on its great seal.
- khuey 5y ago
  Dealing with space debris doesn't require individual action from hundreds of millions of people though. It requires the governments of eleven countries with orbital launch capabilities (counting the ESA as one) to work together.
  - bt1a 5y ago
    I'm not convinced that the latter is any easier than the former.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ycombobreaker 5y ago
    11 Countries? The UN Security Council has five permanent members and they don't always work together (any one of the five can veto resolutions against its own exonomic interest).

arglebarglegar 5y ago

maybe we need something like this to learn how to be more careful before launching garbage everywhere we go

ngcc_hk 5y ago
The question at stake is that there is no we here. Of course you can use the pronoun. But it does reflect the reality. And one trap here is we must have a we. The old way is to say it must be a collective joint action is not right. There is a reason why we have carbon tax, which is a market solution to a commons issue. Not I am saying you can do that. But individual countries as individuals should be an option. Sometimes there is no we. We may want to no we as well sometimes ;-)