4 ms·

At some point I guess the world will have to regulate orbits similarly to how we regulate the electromagnetic spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_au

by vasco 5y ago

At some point I guess the world will have to regulate orbits similarly to how we regulate the electromagnetic spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_auction Once you're assigned an orbit space I would assume it'd be your duty to keep it "clean" and as such owners of orbits would need to either do their own cleanup or contract companies like this. That being said it feels like a company like this is 50 to 100 years too early, but what do I know.

whatshisface 5y ago
We do regulate orbits. Up until now there have been no cleaner companies so we'll see how that plays in to regulation. "Who will pay for it?" is indeed an interesting question. It is not too early because the mess produces more mess through collisions, meaning that the sooner you catch it the less expensive it is to fix. Waiting until the problem is directly painful is humanity's normal operating procedure, but it's also like waiting until your cancer is stage 4 before getting it looked at.
jjoonathan 5y ago
From a strict physics perspective, I tend to think you are right, but from a messy human perspective I think orbital cleanup companies stand to do a lot of good even if they never retrieve more than a token satellite or two. Being able to say "You just made a $200M mess," priced on the cost of cleanup, is a lot more powerful than just being able to say "You made a mess." A concrete price tag is a boon for regulation, for liability & enforcement, and even for space startups explaining to their investors why yes, they do have to include fuel budget for the viking funeral, and no, they can't just decide not to, because the alternative is a $200M cleanup fee.
SahAssar 5y ago
The big difference from EM is that if you turn of your transmitter the "junk" disappears while space junk can persist for a long time in any orbit that is not extremely close. It is also very unknown how much it will cost to clean up the junk and how spread out it will be (both because space-cleaning is new and that space accidents tend to spread out). It sounds great to have those requirements conceptually but it is also extremely hard to even start to think about what those requirements would be and how to enforce them globally.
PeterisP 5y ago
Orbits don't work that way. First, many satellites share an orbit - for example, the whole GEO is a single orbital path, and it has hundreds, something like 25% of all the world's satellites spread over that path; and any junk that intersects that orbit is a threat to all of them, not any one in particular. Second, a random piece of space junk is likely to be in a weird orbit where no satellite would want to be, but that potentially crosses/intersects many orbits where we would like to put satellites or have already done so, so again, it threatens many satellites (or "orbital slots"), not any one in particular. An orbit that's "clean" for this rotation might intersect a piece of space junk in the next rotation or a month afterwards; that junk is not "in that orbit" but it's still a threat to that orbit and many others because its path is crossing these orbits. You could assign responsibility to sources of particular pieces debris; but there simply aren't cleanly separable areas of space for orbits to which you could assign responsibility like we do for radio spectrum.

by vasco 5y ago

whatshisface 5y ago

We do regulate orbits. Up until now there have been no cleaner companies so we'll see how that plays in to regulation. "Who will pay for it?" is indeed an interesting question. It is not too early because the mess produces more mess through collisions, meaning that the sooner you catch it the less expensive it is to fix. Waiting until the problem is directly painful is humanity's normal operating procedure, but it's also like waiting until your cancer is stage 4 before getting it looked at.

jjoonathan 5y ago

From a strict physics perspective, I tend to think you are right, but from a messy human perspective I think orbital cleanup companies stand to do a lot of good even if they never retrieve more than a token satellite or two. Being able to say "You just made a $200M mess," priced on the cost of cleanup, is a lot more powerful than just being able to say "You made a mess." A concrete price tag is a boon for regulation, for liability & enforcement, and even for space startups explaining to their investors why yes, they do have to include fuel budget for the viking funeral, and no, they can't just decide not to, because the alternative is a $200M cleanup fee.

SahAssar 5y ago

The big difference from EM is that if you turn of your transmitter the "junk" disappears while space junk can persist for a long time in any orbit that is not extremely close. It is also very unknown how much it will cost to clean up the junk and how spread out it will be (both because space-cleaning is new and that space accidents tend to spread out). It sounds great to have those requirements conceptually but it is also extremely hard to even start to think about what those requirements would be and how to enforce them globally.

PeterisP 5y ago

Orbits don't work that way. First, many satellites share an orbit - for example, the whole GEO is a single orbital path, and it has hundreds, something like 25% of all the world's satellites spread over that path; and any junk that intersects that orbit is a threat to all of them, not any one in particular. Second, a random piece of space junk is likely to be in a weird orbit where no satellite would want to be, but that potentially crosses/intersects many orbits where we would like to put satellites or have already done so, so again, it threatens many satellites (or "orbital slots"), not any one in particular. An orbit that's "clean" for this rotation might intersect a piece of space junk in the next rotation or a month afterwards; that junk is not "in that orbit" but it's still a threat to that orbit and many others because its path is crossing these orbits. You could assign responsibility to sources of particular pieces debris; but there simply aren't cleanly separable areas of space for orbits to which you could assign responsibility like we do for radio spectrum.