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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome There is a limit to how much we can pollute space. I personally

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome There is a limit to how much we can pollute space. I personally think we're going to lose space for at least a 1000 years, along with every other disaster this century. It will be for some asinine, short sited reason, i.e., power or money.

jacquesm 5y ago
That might not be a bad thing per-se. We are getting a bit addicted to our future selves bailing out our past selves from various fuckups, it might be nice to have a millenium of contemplation to deal with the fall out of previous messes so that we can learn how to be proper stewards of planet sized eco-systems. Once we manage that we are possibly ready to take off the training wheels.
- lindseymysse 5y ago
  With the supply chain disruption we might lose digital technology, too. I say good riddance. We'll still have the mathematics we figured out (Graph Theory, Matrix Math, AI). Our food supply is still mostly human powered. Tractors will get better. We'll have to do something other than surveil people and shit-post on the internet to fill our time. Oh well.
  - t-3 5y ago
    We'll just move to shit-talking on radio. Basic electrical knowledge is way too widespread for anything less than total apocalypse to push us more than 50-100 years back in tech-level. Schematics and parts to assemble simple TTL computers are sufficiently widespread that computing would definitely continue. Small-scale electrical infrastructure is very simple and easy to set up, especially with the large number of high-quality manual tools available almost everywhere.
    - lindseymysse 5y ago
      And that's fine by me. I think this computer everywhere stuff is more trouble than it's worth. It's like when we put radium on everything.
- iamstupidsimple 5y ago
  People don't live long enough to plan for the future over such vast timescales.
  - lindseymysse 5y ago
    we're going to have to learn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    It's either that or extinction at some point so even if people don't live long enough we have to start looking over the horizon of a single human life-span. BTW, the best argument for longevity research that I've come across to date is that if people lived for a thousand years suddenly there would be a lot of support for stabilization of our eco-systems.
inglor_cz 5y ago
The lower orbits are fairly resistant to this because of the residual atmospheric drag. Any piece of debris whose orbit is under 500 km will burn up in the atmosphere within 5-10 years or so. That is known as orbital decay. For something to stay up 1000 years, even a small object like a lost nut, it must orbit at least 900 km away from the Earth. https://www.spaceacademy.net.au/watch/debris/orblife.htm https://www.spaceacademy.net.au/watch/debris/orblife.htm
- lindseymysse 5y ago
  And the moon is 384,400 km away. So, we've sent satellites and probes further than that.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    True, but my reasoning was that we cannot really "lose space" for 1000 years by Kessler syndrome alone. The lower orbits self-clean much faster than that. And Kessler syndrome, even if fully developed, will likely not prevent you from flying to other celestial bodies. Compared to an orbit, you only spend a very short time in the region cluttered by debris when leaving the Earth entirely.
  - stubish 5y ago
    Remember that volume increases exponentially with distance. Even large objects out that far are needles in a stack of haystacks.
    - jholman 5y ago
      Remember that volume absolutely does not increase exponentially with distance, it increases as the third power, which is polynomial. In fact, the word we use for "the third power" is even a direct reference to the fact that it's volume: cubic. Agreed about the needle-in-haystacks part, though.
- blakesley 5y ago
  Oh, good, we'll only lose space for 5-10 years.
golemotron 5y ago
> There is a limit to how much we can pollute space. Not really. The universe is about 93 billion light-years in size and won't ever be traversable in a finite amount of time. Your comment seems to indicate that you think of "space" as earth orbit. Starship is specifically about going beyond orbit. It's time to move beyond scarcity thinking.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  We have no permanent living habitats in space. ZERO. The ISS is where people live temporarily before returning to earth to recover from the effects of zero gravity. We are in a desperate race to expand to space vs destroy ourselves before we get there. If you think that race has been won while three nations have the power to end the human race at the press of a nuclear launch button, you're naive. The Great Filter has a gun pointed squarely at our head and is very slowly pulling the trigger.
- lindseymysse 5y ago
  We have enough food for everyone. We should feed everyone. We have enough houses for everyone, we should house them. Space fantasies aren't part of avoiding scarcity thinking. Space fantasies are a distraction to getting everyone's needs met. https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/energy-slaves/ https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/energy-slaves/ Our current "post scarcity" world is built on shaky grounds. But it doesn't have to collapse.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
wongarsu 5y ago
Having satellites is important to various industries and branches of government. As such, money and power will enable them to have satellites up there. Even if we let Kessler syndrome run unchecked to the point of no return where it destroys a large portion of satellites, we will either start serious clean-up of certain orbits to allow military observation and communication satellites to go up again, or we will develop better collision avoidance or self-defence systems.
- lindseymysse 5y ago
  I find people's belief in Money's ability to solve problems hilarious. We've been patching over problem after problem and every bill is coming due. We need nitrogen. We started making it with hydro carbons. Now we have toxic algae blooms, AND now we're running out of fossil fuels to make nitrogen. We've written a check we aren't able to cash. The solution isn't to keep writing checks.
  - wongarsu 5y ago
    I'm not saying "let's ignore all problems and continue to party". Rather I'm saying "well funded people have a vested interest in solving this before it becomes critical. Our energy is better spent solving problems where that isn't the case"
    - lindseymysse 5y ago
      Lol, like climate change and disinformation. There is no one with money who is interested or capable of solving our problems.

jacquesm 5y ago

That might not be a bad thing per-se. We are getting a bit addicted to our future selves bailing out our past selves from various fuckups, it might be nice to have a millenium of contemplation to deal with the fall out of previous messes so that we can learn how to be proper stewards of planet sized eco-systems. Once we manage that we are possibly ready to take off the training wheels.

lindseymysse 5y ago
With the supply chain disruption we might lose digital technology, too. I say good riddance. We'll still have the mathematics we figured out (Graph Theory, Matrix Math, AI). Our food supply is still mostly human powered. Tractors will get better. We'll have to do something other than surveil people and shit-post on the internet to fill our time. Oh well.
- t-3 5y ago
  We'll just move to shit-talking on radio. Basic electrical knowledge is way too widespread for anything less than total apocalypse to push us more than 50-100 years back in tech-level. Schematics and parts to assemble simple TTL computers are sufficiently widespread that computing would definitely continue. Small-scale electrical infrastructure is very simple and easy to set up, especially with the large number of high-quality manual tools available almost everywhere.
  - lindseymysse 5y ago
    And that's fine by me. I think this computer everywhere stuff is more trouble than it's worth. It's like when we put radium on everything.
iamstupidsimple 5y ago
People don't live long enough to plan for the future over such vast timescales.
- lindseymysse 5y ago
  we're going to have to learn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation
- jacquesm 5y ago
  It's either that or extinction at some point so even if people don't live long enough we have to start looking over the horizon of a single human life-span. BTW, the best argument for longevity research that I've come across to date is that if people lived for a thousand years suddenly there would be a lot of support for stabilization of our eco-systems.

inglor_cz 5y ago

The lower orbits are fairly resistant to this because of the residual atmospheric drag. Any piece of debris whose orbit is under 500 km will burn up in the atmosphere within 5-10 years or so. That is known as orbital decay. For something to stay up 1000 years, even a small object like a lost nut, it must orbit at least 900 km away from the Earth. https://www.spaceacademy.net.au/watch/debris/orblife.htm https://www.spaceacademy.net.au/watch/debris/orblife.htm

lindseymysse 5y ago
And the moon is 384,400 km away. So, we've sent satellites and probes further than that.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  True, but my reasoning was that we cannot really "lose space" for 1000 years by Kessler syndrome alone. The lower orbits self-clean much faster than that. And Kessler syndrome, even if fully developed, will likely not prevent you from flying to other celestial bodies. Compared to an orbit, you only spend a very short time in the region cluttered by debris when leaving the Earth entirely.
- stubish 5y ago
  Remember that volume increases exponentially with distance. Even large objects out that far are needles in a stack of haystacks.
  - jholman 5y ago
    Remember that volume absolutely does not increase exponentially with distance, it increases as the third power, which is polynomial. In fact, the word we use for "the third power" is even a direct reference to the fact that it's volume: cubic. Agreed about the needle-in-haystacks part, though.
blakesley 5y ago
Oh, good, we'll only lose space for 5-10 years.

golemotron 5y ago

> There is a limit to how much we can pollute space. Not really. The universe is about 93 billion light-years in size and won't ever be traversable in a finite amount of time. Your comment seems to indicate that you think of "space" as earth orbit. Starship is specifically about going beyond orbit. It's time to move beyond scarcity thinking.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
We have no permanent living habitats in space. ZERO. The ISS is where people live temporarily before returning to earth to recover from the effects of zero gravity. We are in a desperate race to expand to space vs destroy ourselves before we get there. If you think that race has been won while three nations have the power to end the human race at the press of a nuclear launch button, you're naive. The Great Filter has a gun pointed squarely at our head and is very slowly pulling the trigger.
lindseymysse 5y ago
We have enough food for everyone. We should feed everyone. We have enough houses for everyone, we should house them. Space fantasies aren't part of avoiding scarcity thinking. Space fantasies are a distraction to getting everyone's needs met. https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/energy-slaves/ https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/energy-slaves/ Our current "post scarcity" world is built on shaky grounds. But it doesn't have to collapse.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

wongarsu 5y ago

Having satellites is important to various industries and branches of government. As such, money and power will enable them to have satellites up there. Even if we let Kessler syndrome run unchecked to the point of no return where it destroys a large portion of satellites, we will either start serious clean-up of certain orbits to allow military observation and communication satellites to go up again, or we will develop better collision avoidance or self-defence systems.

lindseymysse 5y ago
I find people's belief in Money's ability to solve problems hilarious. We've been patching over problem after problem and every bill is coming due. We need nitrogen. We started making it with hydro carbons. Now we have toxic algae blooms, AND now we're running out of fossil fuels to make nitrogen. We've written a check we aren't able to cash. The solution isn't to keep writing checks.
- wongarsu 5y ago
  I'm not saying "let's ignore all problems and continue to party". Rather I'm saying "well funded people have a vested interest in solving this before it becomes critical. Our energy is better spent solving problems where that isn't the case"
  - lindseymysse 5y ago
    Lol, like climate change and disinformation. There is no one with money who is interested or capable of solving our problems.