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New Calculation Finds we are close to the Kessler Syndrome [video]

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Re: New Calculation Finds we are close to the Kessler Syndrome [video]

#61

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

mapt wrote: post #48
perihelions wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would any of the US' adversaries agree to that? We have SpaceX, and they do not; lowering the altitude of megaconstellations is asymmetrically far more costly for them then it is for us. Stopping China's (highly strategic, military) satellite constellations isn't a "small amount of diplomacy". It's an impossibility. (It's even their declared planning that deliberate Kessler cascades are on the table [0]—to try to…

Invite them in. Launch their satellites for them, at 400km. Give them cash or territory. Give away the farm. How doesn't matter. What matters is that we start coexisting at 300-500km, and we mutually taboo launching large amounts to altitudes much higher than that. There is no stable Mutually Assured Destruction Nash equilibrium here, if either of us does this thing it causes dramatic harm to both. Not regarding that…

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Re: New Calculation Finds we are close to the Kessler Syndrome [video]

#62

Post by vlovich123 »

mapt wrote: post #56
vlovich123 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than protection on each rocket, couldn't you just send a bunch of fortified rockets that absorb the debris during a collision but don't emit anything. Do that a few times and then all other rockets just reuse the path that was cut?

Orbit is not a location. Orbit is a group of velocity-location vectors which form a stable loop around a body, without intersecting that body. Imagine a bullet circling your head at mach 25. Now imagine a second bullet, circling your head at a slightly different angle, at a slightly different distance from your head. There's a chance that they could collide, and the resulting explosion would leave a great deal of dus…

You’ve explained what Kessler syndrome is but not why my idea doesn’t work.

I’m saying send reinforced rockets through the orbits that absorb the collision instead of generating more dust. That should let you clear a path through all orbits that intersect your path. It’s hard to do and the 3d aspect of it might make it expensive but conceptually it could be a solution. Or use super powerful lasers (potentially mounted on a satellite) to deorbit the dust

Re: New Calculation Finds we are close to the Kessler Syndrome [video]

#63

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mapt wrote: post #57
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don't know how to sell the urgency of this predicament We need to start by understanding it. I'm having trouble finding this paper right now. But to date, all calculations have shown that Kessler syndrome as a generalised phenomenon is incredibly hard to trigger. Even intentionally. Especially in LEO. (Intentionally triggering it is of interest for strategic ASAT denial.) > the mass of potential impactors quickly f…

If 800km impacts go asymptotic, it pollutes 700km and 900km orbits by virtue of having a distribution of resulting debris velocity vectors, and as drag pulls down all the resulting debris over the next thousand years, the 800km debris becomes circular 700km debris, and then circular 600km debris, and then circular 500km debris.

> as drag pulls down all the resulting debris over the next thousand years, the 800km debris becomes circular 700km debris, and then circular 600km debris, and then circular 500km debris

Circularisation isn’t the unexpected part. Sphericalisation is. One requires orbits to desync. The other requires plane changes.

Re: New Calculation Finds we are close to the Kessler Syndrome [video]

#64

Post by lxgr »

resters wrote: post #18

Positioning a large, armored satellite in low or mid-Earth orbit significantly enhances its strategic value for both offensive and defensive anti-satellite operations. Such a platform could serve as a pivotal asset in maintaining orbital dominance, offering rapid response capabilities to neutralize threats and protect critical infrastructure. In other words, welcome various "death stars" to keep order against malicio…

What do you assume happens to a "neutralized threat" in terms of space junk?

Re: New Calculation Finds we are close to the Kessler Syndrome [video]

#65

Post by lxgr »

ryankshaw wrote: post #29
mapt wrote: post #8

The current trajectory is that SpaceX proved the commercial and military viability of an LEO megaconstellation, repeatedly lowering their target altitudes and raising their satellite count because of debris and cell size concerns... And now the rest of the world is trying to catch up in a sort of arms race, and not taking any care about debris concerns. The most tempting orbits are the ones in upper LEO that permit t…

Is Kessler syndrome the Great Filter ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter )? As in, is it the thing that makes it so no one else has broken out of their planet to come visit us? I could totally see it being the case that as soon as a civilization gets good enough at putting stuff into space, they start putting a lot of stuff into space and then things start crashing into each other to the point that they can’…

I'd consider it much less likely than e.g. nuclear or maybe chemical/biological warfare.

Kessler syndrome (if even achievable with current technology) would be a major bummer for science and the global economy for a couple of decades (no more Starlink, but we still have good old geostationary satellites, so no ships and airplanes would get disconnected as a result), or at worst centuries, but would otherwise not form any threat to civilization, whereas nuclear winter is already very capable of wiping it out.

Re: New Calculation Finds we are close to the Kessler Syndrome [video]

#66

Post by dangerwill »

nradov wrote: post #59
bamboozled wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way is for the the US to be more politically stable again (some how). Every country with an army will want its own star link now for trust reasons.

The US is politically stable already (by historical and international standards), and has been since 1865. If you ignore the rhetoric and focus on actions there has been very little substantiative difference in foreign policy across the last 7 presidential administrations.

The US civil war is not the only time the US has been politically unstable. The civil rights movement, the labor disputes of the 1970s, the economic shocks every decade or so from market crashes all have been moments of instability.

What is January 6th if not a concrete example of recent political instability?

As for foreign policy consistency, 7 administrations takes us back to Reagan... The entire movement to sell out our industrial capacity to China and now the movement to try to reverse that have occurred in this time frame. This is just as important as our endless wars in the middle east, imo.

I don't disagree totally but I felt the need to put some nuance here.

Re: New Calculation Finds we are close to the Kessler Syndrome [video]

#67

Post by wiml »

leptons wrote: post #27
nwiswell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It realistically affects practically nobody alive Do people in the Global South not use GPS or consume weather forecasts?

Sure, GPS is nice to have, but we lived without it for many centuries before it, it's also a "first-world-problem" if it goes down. GPS is also notoriously susceptible to ground-based jamming. And because of that there's also other ways to track position. Weather forecasts are nice to have, but often wrong. My original comment was framed more towards space travel.

> Weather forecasts are nice to have, but often wrong.

I think you are really, really underestimating the importance of weather forecasting to modern agriculture (and therefore global stability), shipping and transport, logistics, energy infrastructure, and on and on.

Re: New Calculation Finds we are close to the Kessler Syndrome [video]

#68

Post by jmward01 »

akira2501 wrote: post #14
benchmarkist wrote: post #5

As long as it is militarily and commercially viable then the number of satellites will continue increasing, regardless of what academics have to say about collision rates. As per usual this is a coordination problem and in case people have not noticed nations are becoming less coordinated and more insular.

> in case people have not noticed nations are becoming less coordinated and more insular. And what is your yardstick for measuring this? As far as I can tell this is the opposite of true. It's a popular national news meme but I don't believe it's been measured in any reliable way.

I won't comment on the broader point about how insular countries are becoming, but on this specific topic I'd say that the international reaction to global warming, which appears to be a very similar situation, shows exactly how little action is likely to happen.

Re: New Calculation Finds we are close to the Kessler Syndrome [video]

#69

Post by immibis »

mapt wrote: post #8

The current trajectory is that SpaceX proved the commercial and military viability of an LEO megaconstellation, repeatedly lowering their target altitudes and raising their satellite count because of debris and cell size concerns... And now the rest of the world is trying to catch up in a sort of arms race, and not taking any care about debris concerns. The most tempting orbits are the ones in upper LEO that permit t…

We are currently in a low-trust, selfish world where all hope of collaboration has gone out of the window, so we are on an unchangeable trajectory towards things like Kessler Syndrome and climate hell.

Re: New Calculation Finds we are close to the Kessler Syndrome [video]

#70

Post by kmeisthax »

ryankshaw wrote: post #29
mapt wrote: post #8

The current trajectory is that SpaceX proved the commercial and military viability of an LEO megaconstellation, repeatedly lowering their target altitudes and raising their satellite count because of debris and cell size concerns... And now the rest of the world is trying to catch up in a sort of arms race, and not taking any care about debris concerns. The most tempting orbits are the ones in upper LEO that permit t…

Is Kessler syndrome the Great Filter ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter )? As in, is it the thing that makes it so no one else has broken out of their planet to come visit us? I could totally see it being the case that as soon as a civilization gets good enough at putting stuff into space, they start putting a lot of stuff into space and then things start crashing into each other to the point that they can’…

No. The space junk at a given orbit makes it unviable to put more satellites in that orbit, but launching beyond that orbit is still viable.
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