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Broadband Expansion Could Trigger Dangerous Surge In Space Junk (theguardian.com)
A new study from the University of Southampton warns that expanding broadband networks via launching "mega constellations" of thousands of communications satellites could increase catastrophic crashes of dangerous space junk in Earth's orbit. "Dr Hugh Lewis, a senior lecturer in aerospace engineering at the University of Southampton, ran a 200-year simulation to assess the possible consequences of such a rise in orbital traffic," reports The Guardian. "He found it could create a 50% increase in the number of catastrophic collisions between satellites." From the report: Such crashes would probably lead to a further increase in the amount of space junk in orbit, he said, leading to the possibility of further collisions and potential damage to the services the satellites were intended to provide. The European Space Agency, which funded Lewis's research, is calling for the satellites planned for orbital mega-constellations to be able to move to low altitudes once their missions are over so they burn up in Earth's atmosphere. They must also be able discharge all batteries, fuel tanks and pressure tanks to prevent explosions that would scatter debris. Lewis is presenting his research this week at the European conference on space debris at the ESA's center in Darmsadt, Germany. Krag said he expected some of the companies planning launches to attend.
sat is high lag no kthx
So just how much damage would it cause if a certain unpopular nation with launch capability lofted a few tonnes of grit and ball bearings into orbit, packed around some high explosives, and set it off?
Putting "stuff" up there (LEO) costs between $2K and $13K [1]. Just to be expensively de-orbited.
Now I know it's a *horror* for your standard capitalist these days, but what about, like, PLANNING (omfg, he's said the *P* word!) a bit ahead?
Think about some standards which would make those things as recyclable as possible (like trying to keep a set of agreed-upon materials, standards for easy deconstructibility -- all things which, you know, *might* help us down here too), working towards a LEO factory of the future?
Heck, folks: some of you are dreaming of 3D printing dwellings on Mars, let's fucking tackle LEO first!
[1] https://space.stackexchange.co...
What we're really finding out here is that we need to build an orbital cleanup satellite. I know that nets have been suggested but considering the speeds we're dealing with in orbit (about 17K mph), it seems like a beaded door curtain would be able to handle the stress and be able to catch small pieces. Naturally, each strand of the "curtain" would need to be exceptionally strong, perhaps something like woven carbon nanotubes.
However it's designed, we need to build something to clean up our space junk that can withstand sizable differences in velocity.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
A "low-cost" device sent into LEO? So it's being sold on the admittedly astonishingly low cost compared to traditional launch costs.
So any additional costs (such as end-of-life mechanisms designed to put it into a burn trajectory) are going to have a proportionally greater impact on that "low cost" selling point, which means the proponents have a motive to resist such extra mechanisms and costs.
Anything sold on its main benefit being "low cost" will eventually result in a race to the bottom, and the cost-cutting that entails - "hey, our module is lighter and cheaper to get into orbit (because we decided to do without expensive impact shielding/temperature control/whatever)"
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
A simple solution would be for such satellites to be restricted to orbits with a short expected lifetime.
... to pollute every enviroment it can access. We've done a nice job messing up our atmosphere, the land and sea so the next frontier naturally is space. Who cares if ultimately all this microsatellite crap put up by here today, gone tommorow startups will hang about for decades and cause endless future problems for serious satellites in the future? Profit matters and it matters NOW! Hang any other considerations, right?
Hire a bunch of poor people, send them up into space, and have them work in an orbiting factory of sorts, where they can capture garbage from satellites, and repurpose them for new uses. If they try to rebel or go on a strike, we can just detonate a bomb on the factory (or spray them with a chemical weapon, and have the robots toss their communist bodies out of an airlock), and have someone else collect the parts. =)
Or maybe, instead of poor people, we could use criminals, and have them work in an orbiting prison. Hahaha... even if they could escape, where would they go?
With all the space junk, and polar rivers flowing backwards, and Al Gore jetting around in his private aircraft, and Muslim maniacs, and Elizabeth Warren, and alligators on golf courses. I'm going back to sleep.
How about we just use fiber instead?
This is really going full on glass half empty and it's wrong to single out communications. We are at the point where we are increasing our usage of space resources for all kinds of things. That means there's going to be more stuff up there from everything. It's a sign progress. Who knows the stuff might be able to be harvested and reused in orbit.
oh, the humanity!
There is no scientific proof that human made satellites are the dominant cause of the space junk in Earth’s orbit over the past 100 years.
Scientists need to invent a space vacuum cleaner.....
This same argument applied to social media junk never stopped them from launching facebook in the first place.
mentioned in the summary...you don't expect me to actually read the article, do you?
Of course, it will be you — if there is enough of it left to hurt somebody on Earth upon falling, that's enough to determine, who launched it. Reckless Endangerment is a crime. Criminal and civil penalties will soon follow.
Unless, of course, it was launched by a government organization, which is immune to prosecution. Figure that into your KKKapitali$t-bashing next time...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Educated people know better than to try and drink salt water.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Of course if we continue doing things as they have been done in the past we're looking at a Kessler syndrome. However I think pretty much every space-fairing nation is curbing their space junk creation far more than in the past. The bigger issue is removing all of the garbage up there already and keeping any of the current satellites from collisions.
Bawahahahahahha.... in two hundred years, we'll all be dead, our kids will be dead... assuming humanity is even still AROUND in two hundred years, (and who's to say that would be a good thing?) WE won't, so it seems to me... that's someone ELSE'S problem! Hey, if we're leaving a trashed, baking or freezing planet (depending on a flip of a coin, whether Earth will be VASTLY hotter, or IMMENSELY colder in a couple hundred plus years,) to them, to any hypothetical future generations of humans, a planet poisoned with radioactive waste, seas full of plastic garbage, lead, mercury, and all manner of other poisons never conceived of by nature, a world rapidly sinking into the rising, medical-waste and microplastic-sludge-filled oceans, with an atmosphere depleted of important things like ozone, and a biosphere crawling with tailor-made superbugs, viruses, etc., etc., etc., why WOULDN'T our distant, mutated, crippled, heavy-metals-poisoned and retarded descendants, just naturally EXPECT a matching layer of floating space trash to encircle the earth for billions of years to come?
It just wouldn't be humanity if there were SOMETHING we could fuck up, and we DIDN'T, amiright?!?
The Fsck'n companies can't even expand manage and compete in their terrestrial areas, there is no way they should be allowed access to orbit. The lag associated with satellite internet access is awful. Why should we let them have access and compete with Hughes net when they won't compete with their land bound opposition. Screw AT&T, Spectrum, Rogers, and Shaw.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?