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Space is much bigger than the ground of earth. So 30k in a larger volume than the ground. There are over 1.4 billion vehicles on just a small fraction of the e
by mchusma 5y ago
Space is much bigger than the ground of earth. So 30k in a larger volume than the ground.
There are over 1.4 billion vehicles on just a small fraction of the earth.
There is a long way to go before traffic in space is a serious concern.
- Planktonne 5y agoIt's not a huge problem now, but it will be a lot easier to handle/prevent becoming a problem if we think about it before we've filled space with junk.
- emergentstate 5y agoSure, but satellites do cluster in useful orbits — it’s not some uniform distribution over the space. That significantly increases the chance of direct collision, which has already managed to occur a few times, despite back-of-the-envelope low odds. And the risk of a runaway effect is fairly unique to the orbital setting. If cars magically kept careening down the highway after a collision, constantly tumbling and shedding parts and disintegrating without losing any kinetic energy, we probably couldn’t tolerate the current density of vehicles on roads.