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Yea, even if the major space powers Kesslerize all the satellites (like Starlink) in low-Earth orbit, the civilian geostationary sats like Sirius XM will likely

Yea, even if the major space powers Kesslerize all the satellites (like Starlink) in low-Earth orbit, the civilian geostationary sats like Sirius XM will likely be flying. (Geostationary sats can, I think, only be brought down individually with anti-satellite weapons, and that would presumably be prohibitively expensive for all of them.)

shiroiushi 2y ago
Sure, but who's going to pay for this? Satellites (especially geostationary ones) are expensive. And SiriusXM doesn't provide a worthwhile service that compels enough people to subscribe; it's a wonder it's still in business. The main function of a music subscription service is to listen to music, but have you ever listened to SiriusXM? The audio is so compressed that it sounds terrible.
- jessriedel 2y ago
  Yea I agree. AM seems like the most viable.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    Exactly: AM doesn't require a network of satellites and terrestrial repeaters to be maintained just to provide some emergency public-service info with lousy audio quality. AM does this just fine, for very little cost on both sides (transmitter and receiver).
echoangle 2y ago
Not sure if anyone would ever consider doing this due to the collateral damage, but I think a retrograde GEO orbit would work fine for destroying a lot of GEO Sats. You would need to spread out your impactor by detonating it but the fragments would have 6 km/s relative to the GEO Sats.
- jessriedel 2y ago
  Hmm, thanks, that sounds plausible enough. Have you seen this possibility discussed anywhere?
  - echoangle 2y ago
    Not really, and I couldn’t find something like that from a quick googling. Maybe it wouldn’t work as good as I would think. I’m not sure if it’s really a realistic threat anyways, because polluting GEO is basically half way to a nuclear war. Kesslerizing LEO is probably bad but not forever and more easily avoided by picking another orbit. Making GEO impossible would really annoy every country out there.

shiroiushi 2y ago

Sure, but who's going to pay for this? Satellites (especially geostationary ones) are expensive. And SiriusXM doesn't provide a worthwhile service that compels enough people to subscribe; it's a wonder it's still in business. The main function of a music subscription service is to listen to music, but have you ever listened to SiriusXM? The audio is so compressed that it sounds terrible.

jessriedel 2y ago
Yea I agree. AM seems like the most viable.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Exactly: AM doesn't require a network of satellites and terrestrial repeaters to be maintained just to provide some emergency public-service info with lousy audio quality. AM does this just fine, for very little cost on both sides (transmitter and receiver).

echoangle 2y ago

Not sure if anyone would ever consider doing this due to the collateral damage, but I think a retrograde GEO orbit would work fine for destroying a lot of GEO Sats. You would need to spread out your impactor by detonating it but the fragments would have 6 km/s relative to the GEO Sats.

jessriedel 2y ago
Hmm, thanks, that sounds plausible enough. Have you seen this possibility discussed anywhere?
- echoangle 2y ago
  Not really, and I couldn’t find something like that from a quick googling. Maybe it wouldn’t work as good as I would think. I’m not sure if it’s really a realistic threat anyways, because polluting GEO is basically half way to a nuclear war. Kesslerizing LEO is probably bad but not forever and more easily avoided by picking another orbit. Making GEO impossible would really annoy every country out there.