The Elusive Peril of Space Junk • Hacker News Board

Re: The Elusive Peril of Space Junk

#11

Post by Rebelgecko » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:42 AM UTC

nayuki wrote: post #10

I find that the page's decision to hide the scrollbar and force smooth scrolling to be user-hostile.

They also seem to have done something that breaks Control-F, at least on Firefox. On top of that the page seems to randomly scroll while I'm reading, which I'd assume is unintentional

Re: The Elusive Peril of Space Junk

#12

Post by noizejoy » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:44 AM UTC

> “People are not really worrying about this, because it is inconvenient to act responsibly,” Darren McKnight, who works as a technical director at the aerospace-services company Centauri, told me.

Reading this article about space garbage just after reading the article about plastic garbage also currently on the HN front page was interesting and the quote could have fit well into the other article, too.

Our species seems incredibly good at making things and incredibly bad at cleaning up.

Re: The Elusive Peril of Space Junk

#13

Post by Rebelgecko » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 5:09 AM UTC

I think it's interesting that the RORSAT satellites mentioned in 3 or 4 places in the article (although not always by name) were at one point responsible for something like a ridiculously large percentage of space junk (maybe even a majority, although I cant find the numbers easily).

Re: The Elusive Peril of Space Junk

#14

Post by segfaultbuserr » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 5:40 AM UTC

noizejoy wrote: post #12

> “People are not really worrying about this, because it is inconvenient to act responsibly,” Darren McKnight, who works as a technical director at the aerospace-services company Centauri, told me. Reading this article about space garbage just after reading the article about plastic garbage also currently on the HN front page was interesting and the quote could have fit well into the other article, too. Our species s…

> “People are not really worrying about this, because it is inconvenient to act responsibly,”

Universal truth, it's now my quote of the day. Climate. Infrastructure. Technical Debt in Code. You name it.

Re: The Elusive Peril of Space Junk

#15

Post by segfaultbuserr » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

ohand wrote: post #3

And if you haven't seen or read Planetes, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's the best anime/manga on the subject.

I was motivated to watch it after reading a review with a frame-by-frame analysis of how it got the physics right.

Re: The Elusive Peril of Space Junk

#16

Post by markc » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics gave a great talk at the CfA on this topic a few years back. He created GCAT, a database that attempts to track all artificial space objects. https://planet4589.org/space/gcat/web/cat/index.html

I'm looking forward to Public Observatory Night resuming in person someday. :(

Re: The Elusive Peril of Space Junk

#17

Post by high_5 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 6:23 AM UTC

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #14

noizejoy wrote: post #12

> “People are not really worrying about this, because it is inconvenient to act responsibly,” Darren McKnight, who works as a technical director at the aerospace-services company Centauri, told me. Reading this article about space garbage just after reading the article about plastic garbage also currently on the HN front page was interesting and the quote could have fit well into the other article, too. Our species s…

> “People are not really worrying about this, because it is inconvenient to act responsibly,” Universal truth, it's now my quote of the day. Climate. Infrastructure. Technical Debt in Code. You name it.

My messy room.

Re: The Elusive Peril of Space Junk

#18

Post by tambeb » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 6:38 AM UTC

nayuki wrote: post #10

I find that the page's decision to hide the scrollbar and force smooth scrolling to be user-hostile.

Websites that do this should be shut down by the government and the person/people behind it should be charged with crimes against humanity.

Re: The Elusive Peril of Space Junk

#19

Post by amd64 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:03 AM UTC

http://www.stuffin.space/

Re: The Elusive Peril of Space Junk

#20

Post by pferde » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 9:46 AM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #7

gnramires wrote: post #6

Beautiful presentation!

Yes but it's so slow on Firefox for Android that it constantly overs rolls. Very hard to read because it keeps jumping to the wrong place.

Disable javascript, and it stops being a vanity art project, and magically turns into a web article.

Some people should not be allowed near web publishing.