ESA's New Documentary Paints Worrying Picture of Earth's Orbital Junk Problem (inkl.com) 30
The European Space Agency's short film Space Debris: Is it a Crisis? highlights the growing danger of orbital clutter, warning that "70% of the 20,000 satellites ever launched remain in space today, orbiting alongside hundreds of millions of fragments left behind by collisions, explosions and intentional destruction." Inkl reports: The approximately eight-minute-long film "Space Debris: Is it a Crisis?" attempts to answer its conjecture with supportive statistics and orbital projections. [...] The film also mentions that the kind of Earth orbit matters when discussing whether we're in a space junk "crisis" -- though unfortunately, orbits at risk appear to be those with satellites that help with communication and navigation, as well as our fight against another primarily human-driven crisis: global warming. Still, the film emphasizes that solutions ought to be thought of carefully: "True sustainability is complex, and rushed solutions risk creating the problem of burden-shifting." You can watch the film on ESA's website.
Starting to look like Earth in Wall-E? (Score:4, Interesting)
Have a good look at the beginning of Wall-E. There's a shot of Earth, in space, from afar, and there's a brown haze surrounding the planet. That "haze" is a layer of dead satellites and debris, not the atmosphere.
Wall-E is Idiocracy for 5 year olds and hyper-sensitive people. Same message, different delivery.
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As long as we are in the realm of sci-fi, you can always send up a cleanup crew...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pm... [tvtropes.org]
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There was also Richard Benjamin's Quark (No relation to the Ferengi on DS9)
Re: Starting to look like Earth in Wall-E? (Score:2)
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Bullshit. Wall-E was movie, the article has real facts and figures. Learn to tell the difference.
Those lying about the real problem of space junk while dismissing the Kessler syndrome, are the actual bullshitters. Learn to recognize that as the actual problem here. Parent was merely making a relative point demonstrated years ago. Movies tend to emulate real life (including future prediction) more than we care to admit.
Re: Starting to look like Earth in Wall-E? (Score:2)
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Assume we are referring to Idiocracy again?
Yes. Along with Terminators problem of Skynet. And Good Morning, Vietnams problem of Government censorship. And whatever else Hollywood dreams up that ironically falls short of the kind of horrors reality has often delivered in response.
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The Wall-E movie was pretty disturbing to me. It's all the "implication" of what isn't said or pointed out. You know, SOME people made it off the planet. And they were reduced to useless puddles of consumption to keep them happy and sedated.
The writers knew what they were doing, and they threaded the needle to keep it a kids show.
And Idiocracy is a brightly colored adult version, but the jokes cover what a hell hole that world would be.
And these are all better than the path I see we are on as a nation.
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Judging by your use of the expression "the Left", you must be a conservative/republican, right ?
And as such, shouldn't you be in favor of capitalism ? You know: free market, competition, etc.
But apparently, you seem to consider competition good only when it is not directed at someone you worship...
the Left would have no standards at all
Oh, the irony...
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Well, there is a relatively long-standing movement, worldwide, described as 'the Left'. The term is not new:
"The French Left (French: Gauche française) refers to communist, socialist, social democratic, democratic socialist, and anarchist political forces in France. The term originates from the National Assembly of 1789, where supporters of the revolution were seated on the left of the assembly. During the 1800s, left largely meant support for the republic, whereas right largely meant support for the m
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Without 'the Left' there'd be no elonmusk at all. All his real money is subsidy cash, handed to him by the Democrats.
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Yes, satellite constellations are a natural monopoly. They should be launched by governments or, even better, by the UN and provided to the world as a public utility.
It's an interesting comment on American politics that Americans are labelling free market competition a leftist conspiracy.
Related Content (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting conjunction (Score:4, Informative)
The Kessler syndrome looks more and more likely each day.
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How many parsecs is that?
Try and memorize the answer to your pointless question, because there won’t be any network left to look it up on when Kessler becomes infamous.
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I wonder what the economics are really like though. Musk asked on Twitter if people would ditch their broadband if Starlink was available for $10/month. Heavy discounting, but of limited help because Starlink just doesn't have the bandwidth to serve all that many people.
It's possible that the economics of space based internet access just don't work. It's also possible that it becomes obsolete for broadband use as terrestrial bandwidth increases and it can't keep up.
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I wonder what the economics are really like though. Musk asked on Twitter if people would ditch their broadband if Starlink was available for $10/month. Heavy discounting, but of limited help because Starlink just doesn't have the bandwidth to serve all that many people.
It's possible that the economics of space based internet access just don't work. It's also possible that it becomes obsolete for broadband use as terrestrial bandwidth increases and it can't keep up.
I would ditch FIOS if Starlink was $10/month
Re:Interesting conjunction (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that some fibre service? Because if it's in anywhere with a significant population, chances are if Starlink was $10/month it would be massively over-subscribed. Either they wouldn't let you join, or it would be too slow to be usable.
"Reaching for the stars, we blind the sky..." (Score:2)
And just like that... (Score:2)
...our world is beginning to look more and more like a Neal Stephenson novel...
Deorbiting isn't good either (Score:3)
Deorbiting a satellite generally means it gets vaporized. How safe is the resulting material? Do we want it in our atmosphere? There aren't any international regulations establishing caps for this sort of pollution.
There are two ways to address the problem. The first and simplest is to put fewer satellites in orbit. The second is to deorbit them intact, which can take a lot of mass budget. Nobody makes money from this, though, so it's not going to happen.
See also ESA Annual Debris Report from Monday (Score:1)
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That's because the problem isn't with the stuff we're launching today. It can all maneuver, deorbit or park itself, and is actively controlled to avoid collisions. The problem is with the old stuff that just blunders along out of control, most of it in a few particularly useful orbits.
It is not such a big deal (Score:4, Interesting)
Other options are not feasible anyway. The clean space is a common good and there is little incentive for individual players not to pollute. Barring some international enforcement, space will get full of junk. The current political situation is not cooperative at the international level. The clean space enforcement is very unlikely.
What fight would that be? And who is fighting it? (Score:2)
"our fight against another primarily human-driven crisis: global warming"
Is it the one that China is fighting by installing coal fired generation as fast as it can...?
I Called it (Score:2)
I've been saying for ~30 years that space debris is an absolutely massive business opportunity. Once we figure out how to get paid for cleanup, there will be a rush of space garbage collection.
In the mean time, ESA should do its part and stop throwing garbage into orbit.
Link to the YouTube version of the ESA Doco (Score:2)
Title: Space Debris: Is it a Crisis?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]