21–30 of 116 posts
Well, this shoots down the argument that Blue Origin is just Amazon's space wing. Strange to see them launching a direct Amazon Leo competitor but now that they have reusable boosters (on paper) it does make more sense for them to control the lion's share of their launch manifest with their own megaconstellation.
From a technical standpoint: amazing achievement, and the tech nerd in me is in awe. But it feels like a lot of people don't understand (or care?) how much these companies are polluting the space. Before the "new wave", in 2010-2015 or so, Earth had around 1500 active satellites in orbit, and another 2,000-2,500 defunct ones. Starlink now has almost 9,500 satellites in orbit, has approvals for 12,000 and long-term pl…
Is it a lot? It's a bit like you are telling me there are gonna be 250000 cars on a planet larger than Earth.
I have no idea if the number is actually a lot shrug but it's surely different than cars on a planet's surface
From a technical standpoint: amazing achievement, and the tech nerd in me is in awe. But it feels like a lot of people don't understand (or care?) how much these companies are polluting the space. Before the "new wave", in 2010-2015 or so, Earth had around 1500 active satellites in orbit, and another 2,000-2,500 defunct ones. Starlink now has almost 9,500 satellites in orbit, has approvals for 12,000 and long-term pl…
How many causes Kessler syndrome?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it a lot? It's a bit like you are telling me there are gonna be 250000 cars on a planet larger than Earth.
With the difference that cars can steer and stop to avoid collisions and aren't necessarily in your field of view every time you look at the night sky ;) I have no idea if the number is actually a lot shrug but it's surely different than cars on a planet's surface
Looks like they are using lasers for backhaul down to ground stations. What happens if the beam is obstructed for a brief moment (plane, kite, ufo, etc..)?
Same as with any dropped packet.
From a technical standpoint: amazing achievement, and the tech nerd in me is in awe. But it feels like a lot of people don't understand (or care?) how much these companies are polluting the space. Before the "new wave", in 2010-2015 or so, Earth had around 1500 active satellites in orbit, and another 2,000-2,500 defunct ones. Starlink now has almost 9,500 satellites in orbit, has approvals for 12,000 and long-term pl…
I wonder if there's a limit to space junk beyond which leaving the Earth in a space shuttle becomes impossible.
There is. We don't have the industrial capacity, as a species, to do it.
From a technical standpoint: amazing achievement, and the tech nerd in me is in awe. But it feels like a lot of people don't understand (or care?) how much these companies are polluting the space. Before the "new wave", in 2010-2015 or so, Earth had around 1500 active satellites in orbit, and another 2,000-2,500 defunct ones. Starlink now has almost 9,500 satellites in orbit, has approvals for 12,000 and long-term pl…
How many causes Kessler syndrome?
Space is huge. Try this trick: the number of satellites in orbit is about the same as the number of planes in the air at any time. (~12,000 [1].)
The volume of space from the ground to 50,000 feet is about 200x smaller than the volume from the Karman line to the top of LEO alone (~2,000 km).
Put another way, we approach the density of planes in the sky in LEO when there are milliions of satellites in that space alone. Picture what happens if every plane in the sky fell to the ground. Now understand that the same thing happening in LEO, while it occurs at higher energy, also occurs in less-occupied space and will eventually (mostly) burn up in the atmosphere.
Put another way, you could poof every Starlink simultaneously and while it would be tremendously annoying, most satellites orbiting lower would be able to get out of the way, those that couldn't wouldn't cause much more damage, the whole mess would be avoidable for most and entirely gone within a few years.
There are serious problems with space pollution. Catastrophic Kessler cascades that block humans from space, or knock out all of our satellites, aren't one of them.
[1] https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/number-of...
Assuming all these companies are interested in launching their own constellations of ~10K-100K satellites into L/MEO, how many companies could actually do this before cascading collisions starts becoming a real worry?
From a technical standpoint: amazing achievement, and the tech nerd in me is in awe. But it feels like a lot of people don't understand (or care?) how much these companies are polluting the space. Before the "new wave", in 2010-2015 or so, Earth had around 1500 active satellites in orbit, and another 2,000-2,500 defunct ones. Starlink now has almost 9,500 satellites in orbit, has approvals for 12,000 and long-term pl…