SpaceX lowering orbits of 4,400 Starlink satellites for safety's sake
1–10 of 105 posts
Re: SpaceX lowering orbits of 4,400 Starlink satellites for safety's sake
#2From a comment :
>The first move in the coming WWIII, where the emperors try to expand their empires militaril,y will be to wipe out any orbit with Starlink satellites.
I find this highly unlikely, given Starlink is soon to reached 10k satellites and will continue to grow. Why expand 10 000 ballistic missiles to bring down one of many communications networks ?
Re: SpaceX lowering orbits of 4,400 Starlink satellites for safety's sake
#3From a comment : >The first move in the coming WWIII, where the emperors try to expand their empires militaril,y will be to wipe out any orbit with Starlink satellites. I find this highly unlikely, given Starlink is soon to reached 10k satellites and will continue to grow. Why expand 10 000 ballistic missiles to bring down one of many communications networks ?
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Re: SpaceX lowering orbits of 4,400 Starlink satellites for safety's sake
#4From a comment : >The first move in the coming WWIII, where the emperors try to expand their empires militaril,y will be to wipe out any orbit with Starlink satellites. I find this highly unlikely, given Starlink is soon to reached 10k satellites and will continue to grow. Why expand 10 000 ballistic missiles to bring down one of many communications networks ?
Because Kessler syndrome means you don't need to hit all 10k yourself.
Lowering the orbits just means that we get back to normal faster, not that the it's impossible.
Re: SpaceX lowering orbits of 4,400 Starlink satellites for safety's sake
#5From a comment : >The first move in the coming WWIII, where the emperors try to expand their empires militaril,y will be to wipe out any orbit with Starlink satellites. I find this highly unlikely, given Starlink is soon to reached 10k satellites and will continue to grow. Why expand 10 000 ballistic missiles to bring down one of many communications networks ?
Because Kessler syndrome means you don't need to hit all 10k yourself. Lowering the orbits just means that we get back to normal faster, not that the it's impossible.
Does Kessler syndrome also mean ICBMs become nonviable?
Re: SpaceX lowering orbits of 4,400 Starlink satellites for safety's sake
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because Kessler syndrome means you don't need to hit all 10k yourself. Lowering the orbits just means that we get back to normal faster, not that the it's impossible.
Does Kessler syndrome also mean ICBMs become nonviable?
No.
It's not a wall. The risk from going through a dangerous orbit is much much less than the risk from staying there.
Re: SpaceX lowering orbits of 4,400 Starlink satellites for safety's sake
#7There are so many satellites in orbit that there is a pretty good chance that if even one was to be hit by something and explode in many pieces, it would crash another one and then another one until there is nothing left.
The nasa is pretty scared of it, so is SpaceX.
Re: SpaceX lowering orbits of 4,400 Starlink satellites for safety's sake
#8From a comment : >The first move in the coming WWIII, where the emperors try to expand their empires militaril,y will be to wipe out any orbit with Starlink satellites. I find this highly unlikely, given Starlink is soon to reached 10k satellites and will continue to grow. Why expand 10 000 ballistic missiles to bring down one of many communications networks ?
If it's WWIII, and you're using ballistic missiles against satellite constellations, then either:
- You are not targeting individual satellites; you're setting off nuclear warheads in space, and relying on the EMP to disable all satellites within a large radius of the blast - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse
or
- You're nuking the ground-based command & control centers for those satellites. Again, nothing like 10,000 missiles needed.
(Or both.)
To target 10,000 satellites directly, the "obvious" weapon would be a few satellite-launch rockets, lofting tons of BB's (or little steel bolts, or whatever) - which would become a sort of long-duration artillery barrage shrapnel in orbit.
Re: SpaceX lowering orbits of 4,400 Starlink satellites for safety's sake
#9From a comment : >The first move in the coming WWIII, where the emperors try to expand their empires militaril,y will be to wipe out any orbit with Starlink satellites. I find this highly unlikely, given Starlink is soon to reached 10k satellites and will continue to grow. Why expand 10 000 ballistic missiles to bring down one of many communications networks ?
You don’t need 10k missiles. You need just one to blow up all of starlink satellites.
This is like bowling, you hit one, it hits the other one etcétéras.
Re: SpaceX lowering orbits of 4,400 Starlink satellites for safety's sake
#10There are so many satellites in orbit that there is a pretty good chance that if even one was to be hit by something and explode in many pieces, it would crash another one and then another one until there is nothing left. The nasa is pretty scared of it, so is SpaceX.
There is huge increase of orbital launches in recent years [1] done mostly by SpaceX and China is also planning to double its numbers in the coming years. The risks will be even higher.