HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

3 major options are discussed in https://youtu.be/yS1ibDImAYU

Edit: that's an 8 minutes Kurzgesagt video.

What I think is infuriating that companies and countries can just put up as many satellites up there as they want.

If you put dangerous[1][2] garbage in the sky you should have some responsibility to keep it safe and clean up.

IMHO the risk of putting these things up outweigh any potential benefit for underserved regions. Musk could've also invested in ground-based communications infrastructure.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU

⬐ mlindner

Firstly, that Kurzgesagt video had numerous errors in it including ridiculously false lines like "3-4 satellites are getting destroyed this way every year." The source for that specific line was a politician, not a scientist. The video is not a legitimate source.

Secondly, the Kessler syndrome is believed to already be happening by some, but it's a slow process that occurs over 10s to 100s of years and doesn't result in any of the popular depictions like in Gravity or in Wall-e. The Kessler syndrome also does not happen at altitudes where debris are rapidly removed by the atmosphere, which is where Starlink operates in. So even if you were to spontaneously blow up all the Starlink satellites (not at all realistic), the debris would be largely removed after less than a decade.

Thirdly, as mentioned Starlink operates specifically in a region of space that is reasonably rapidly (within the order of a few years) cleared up of any non-functioning satellites or debris.

Fourthly, you can't call operational satellites with the ability to actively avoid debris and other satellites "dangerous garbage". You could use that term for cubesats with no on-board propulsion possibly, but not Starlink.

> IMHO the risk of putting these things up outweigh any potential benefit for underserved regions.

The risk is overstated and it's easy to ignore the benefits if it doesn't improve your own life.

> Musk could've also invested in ground-based communications infrastructure.

If it was so cheap to improve ground-based communications infrastructure it would have been done already. (And it has been in most areas of many European countries because of the density of their populations, but that's not true everywhere)

⬐ freemint

> The Kessler syndrome also does not happen at altitudes where debris are rapidly removed by the atmosphere

Citation needed. If the are enough satellites any decay rate can become irrelevant.

> Secondly, the Kessler syndrome is believed to already be happening by some, but it's a slow process that occurs over 10s to 100s of years and doesn't result in any of the popular depictions like in Gravity or in Wall-e.

It's slow right now but the expected growth behavior is worse than exponential (dx/dt ~ x^2 vs dx/dt ~ x) and internationally we have fully failed to stop an (dx/dt ~ x) process in the last year.

> Thirdly, as mentioned Starlink operates specifically in a region of space that is reasonably rapidly (within the order of a few years) cleared up of any non-functioning satellites or debris.

Space junk by definition is unassisted and uncontrolled. So it's not like you aim to present it that any Kessler syndrome will be over in the same time.

> The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires CubeSats and other picosatellites to be designed to re-enter the atmosphere within 25 years of the end of their useful lifetimes. Without an assistance, it is estimated that a CubeSat may take over 150 years to de-orbit from an 800 km altitude.

800km is well within low earth orbit.

> Fourthly, you can't call operational satellites with the ability to actively avoid debris and other satellites "dangerous garbage". You could use that term for cubesats with no on-board propulsion possibly, but not Starlink.

It doesn't help if those thrusters are not used by Starlink as they failed to do here: http://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/ESA_spacecraft_dodges_lar...

Starlink (or OneWeb pick one) might be living in an alternative reality with regards to collision risks as this situation shows https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/04/space... (read the update for more details). As there can be no disagreement with in Newtonian or Einsteinian physics whether or not there was a risk of collision.

Kurzgesagt has made a video about space junk. End of Space – Creating a Prison for Humanity https://youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU

Kessler syndrome - hundreds of thousands of tiny shards would explode at the point of impact ripping into other satellites and rendering them defunct (causing more collisions). An exponential growth would occur which would result in Earth orbit being unusable. This might effectively lock use of Earth orbit away for centuries.

See the video by Kurzgesagt - “End of Space: Creating a Prison for Humanity.” [1]

[1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU

⬐ mlang23

This somehow reminds me of Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. Its not the same story of course, but I cant help but think of the book.

⬐ johncalvinyoung

Hated that book, after reading a bunch of Stephenson's others. Preordered it even. Highly disappointed.

⬐ kfarr

Yeah our satellites just need a huge asteroid clearing the way if the worst happens

⬐ xvector

I really enjoyed the first third of the book, the second third was decent too. I had to drop it when I got to the last third, it just became too boring.

⬐ iainmerrick

I haven’t read Seveneves, but that describes many Neal Stephenson novels. The Diamond Age is the clearest example for me -- brilliant beginning, with a really compelling setting; confused middle; terrible ending.

⬐ tialaramex

I don't get why people dislike the end of The Diamond Age in particular.

Spoilers. Like, I mean, this isn't a plot summary, but this is in some sense what happens so look away now if you wish you didn't know:

The Primer has been calling her Princess Nell for a long time. Once you realise what's going on with the vast number of "specially adapted" Primers for the orphan girls, that Princess has got a ready made tribe with shared values in the form of the Mouse Army, waiting for her say so.

The whole book has been telling you that in this era what matters isn't control over a land mass, which is what the Fists are fighting for in the Leased Territories on behalf of Han, but a Tribe with shared values.

The Mouse Army shows up, rescues Nell and takes her to her mother. The Victorian Queen recognises Nell as the leader of a novel but important tribe.

The novel is flawed in many usual Stephenson ways (e.g. use of rape in place of actual character development) but I don't know what people expected from these endings, they seemed perfectly satisfactory to me on multiple re-readings.

⬐ jlmorton

Yeah, you didn't miss much. Fantastic book nonetheless.

⬐ mlang23

Same here. I felt like the book could actually end after the remaining women decided on genetic manipulations. What followed thereafter was quite boring, and I stopped reading it as well. Actually sad, because the backstory is likely just preparation for what follows. But it was just too boring to go on.

Prompted by a comment from someone yesterday, I actually replayed the Snow Crash audiobook in the evening. Comparing SC and SE I notice that SC feels quite juvenile. I didnt notice that as much when I first read it in my 20s. But these days, it feels a bit too much over the top. Contrary to that, SE somehow feels too grown up.

⬐ j4nt4b

Completely agree. He overwrote himself into a blind corner - wasted so much time describing the orbital mechanics of chains that my eyes rolled all the way up into the back of my head, completely spoiled any remote semblance of hard sci-fi he had going with the surprise Ur-Middle Earth origin story, and finally never justified all the self-indulgence with even a single word about the agent.

⬐ staticassertion

Can't wait to be boiled alive on this stupid planet because we filled space with garbage.

⬐ xvector

From my understanding of Kessler syndrome after reading more about it - only LEO would be locked out for a couple of centuries, even in a worst-case scenario. We should still be able to go beyond that with minimal repercussions.

This is in conflict with the Kurzgesagt video. I wonder what their source was for the Kessler effect preventing excursions into space altogether.

⬐ jasonwatkinspdx

The Kurzgesagt videos are well produced but aren't the greatest for accuracy in the details on a lot of topics, sadly.

⬐ vectorcrumb

Not an AE, but from my understanding of orbital mechanics, I think we usually use a LEO orbit to insert payloads into higher orbits or onto escape trajectories. Even Starship, which could be considered a next gen orbital vehicle, relies on LEO for reloading fuel before leaving Earth.

⬐ chillfox

How exactly do you propose reaching higher orbits without going through LEO first?

⬐ Cogito

How do you get to the outer solar system without going through the asteroid belt?

We don't worry about hitting an asteroid if going through the belt, because the density of objects is so low.

If you wanted to stay in the asteroid belt you would have many more opportunities for a collision, so avoiding asteroids becomes a lot more important.

⬐ TeMPOraL

You go through LEO, you just don't park there. Think direct insertion into higher-altitude orbits, in the style beginners in Kerbal Space Program do it - i.e. going straight up through LEO and only then turning sideways to gain orbital velocity.

The risk will be much lower (you'll be spending very little time in the band filled with hypervelocity bullets), but it'll also be much more expensive. You'll need a much bigger rocket.

⬐ salawat

You... Generalize that if you punch straight up through that band with no orbital velocity, you're praying that no bullets intersect with you at 14 km/s while you're in that band? Some potentially untraceable by radar?

⬐ MarkMarine

LEO is pretty important, first we have people there right now, and with the notable exceptions of weather and GPS, everything I take for granted in life that works because of satellites is in LEO. Not having it for 150 years would make space exponentially more expensive in every way.

⬐ ladberg

If it makes you feel any better it's pretty much impossible to make Earth less habitable than anywhere else in a few light years, so I wouldn't worry about missing out on a space-paradise!

⬐ larkeith

Throw enough nukes around and Europa might start to look a pleasant alternative.

⬐ ars

Every nuke on earth would not do that. The Earth is really big, and even a nuke would not affect a large portion of it.

⬐ saagarjha

At that point Kessler syndrome will be the least of our problems.

⬐ baq

well if we continue growing energy consumption 1% yoy, we boil off oceans in 400 years

⬐ gus_massa

DO you have a source for this? I cant't find something for 2400, but from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P... the prediction of the IPCC for 2300 is an increase of 3.0 to 12.6 °C that is really bad but by far not enough to start boiling the oceans.

⬐ JumpCrisscross

1% a year for 400 years is 53x our current energy consumption. That sort of energy strongly implies off-world activity and thus waste heat deposition.

⬐ baq

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

i heartily recommend the whole series. i made a mistake in the post before - the post assumes 2.3% yoy.

⬐ srtjstjsj

The article shows that 2.3% is an extreme upper bonnet because humanity has already lost its need of ability to generate 2.3% more growth per year. It's another case of people looking at a logistic graph and pretending it's exponential

⬐ baq

that's the underlying theme of the series - it shows that exponential growth of economy is tied to exponential growth of energy consumption and it's something economists can't quite wrap their heads around.

⬐ TeMPOraL

Modern economy: hold my beer and watch the exponent.

⬐ yreg

Kortila is asking why is a head-on colision worse than non-head-on.

⬐ brmgb

Space is extremely large and mostly empty. People tend to misunderstand Kessler syndrome a lot because they build their idea on faulty representations. For example, if you go to the wikipedia article on Kessler syndrome, you will see an image where centimeters long debris are symbolised by kilometers wide dots.

> This might effectively lock use of Earth orbit away for centuries.

It would make exiting earth orbit and placing an object there significantly more complicated because you would need to take into account debris, probably detect them from the object and manoeuvre a lot more but it wouldn't entirely lock up use of Earth orbit. It would also be a solvable situation. Cleaning debris is doable.

⬐ ppljudge

Agreed. There must be some illustration to give us a better idea of how vast the orbitable area is.

Relevant Kurzgesagt https://youtu.be/yS1ibDImAYU

The gist: we could trap ourselves on earth for generations with space debris.

Relevant video from kurtzgesagt: https://youtu.be/yS1ibDImAYU

> A graveyard orbit sounds like it will be flying around up their indefinitely as high speed shrapnel. Does anyone know why they would choose this instead of destroying it on re-entry?

Because the ∆v required to re-enter the atmosphere is significantly higher than that required to leave geosynchronous orbit for a higher graveyard orbit.

But yes, ultimately it will remain up there as "high speed shrapnel" - which is not an ideal situation, and continuing to treat disposal as we have may put us in a situation where these orbits become so full of high speed garbage that they are unusable. As a species, we need to do more work on cleaning up our space garbage before it's too late.

Kurzgesagt actually has a great video on the topic of space debris for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU

⬐ phkahler

Starship should make it feasible to go garbage collecting up there. That doesnt mean anyone will pay for it though.

⬐ toyg

There is an old anime about that: Planetes.

⬐ gerikson

One of my favs. I love the mix of SF and slice-of-life.

⬐ ShakataGaNai

I watched that one back in the day. It's been as while but as far I as remember it was fairly decently done on the space physics/what can go wrong aspects.

⬐ slowhand09

I prefer having technology to vaporize rather than collect. But if we have the technology, just a scanning tractor beam to collect the debris. My guess is it'll all be too primitive for any reuse. So collecting it with a beam, then projecting it in a sun-seeking trajectory by reversing the beam.

⬐ dvtrn

I prefer having technology to vaporize rather than collect.

The ESA is putting a lot of focused attention behind this very thing, to certain extents [0]

[0] https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/sdc7/paper/7...

⬐ fennecfoxen

Only for breaking up satellites already approaching the atmosphere, though.

⬐ fennecfoxen

"Vaporizing" a satellite is a misleading concept which draws on atmospheric analogies that do not hold up.

A satellite is made out of metal and such things. You can heat that metal hot enough to melt it, but then its structural integrity will fail, and the liquid will disperse into a cloud of metal droplets while other satellite-parts drift away. When the metal droplets cool off, they will still remain in about the same orbit. This does not make an impact with any of these droplets particularly safe.

Transporting the amount of energy to properly vaporize metal is also problematic and expensive.

We do not possess tractor beam technology. Our tractors on this planet all use mechanical linkages. If we did have tractor beam technology, powering it would remain a problem.

⬐ wahern

We do possess optical tractor beam technology:

> However, about 10 years ago, researchers found that the object may experience an optical pulling force (OPF) toward the source direction when illuminated by an unfocused beam, such as a diffraction-free (nondiffraction) Bessel beam, which is named an optical tractor beam (OTB). Although it seems counterintuitive, OPF has been theoretically proved and experimentally demonstrated within recent years, as will be reviewed in this paper.

Source: https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/advanced-photoni...

Although, there's a lot of distance to cover between the current state-of-the-art and actually capturing orbital debris.

⬐ penagwin

Keep in mind to do garbage collecting you are essentially trying to intercept high-speed objects that likely have no telemetry. If your speed and orbit aren't correct, or if there's shrapnel or other debris, you'll destroy your ship.

And you can only pickup garbage that's in a similar orbit too.

⬐ greglindahl

We're talking about the graveyard orbit, which is not far from geosynchronous orbit.

In fact there's such an intercept being done soon, the mission extension vehicle (MEV) is going to rendezvous with an old but still controlled satellite in order to extend its useful life. This rendezvous is being done in the graveyard orbit in case something goes wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Extension_Vehicle

Animated version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU

Everytime I see these kind of events I think about Kurzgesagt video [1] about how the domino effect of satellite collisions would release such a high amount space debris that would trap us all on earth forever.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU

⬐ felipemnoa

Related anime: https://myanimelist.net/anime/329/Planetes

⬐ dvtrn

Has this ever been explored as a Fermi solution? I realize it’s probably on the wild side of speculation but...

⬐ SamReidHughes

It just means orbits at one level are out of the question. You can still punch through to a higher orbit.

⬐ oh_sigh

Starlink satellites are only approximately 350 miles up, which means any debris gets brought down by atmospheric drag very quickly. A million satellites in that orbit could not cause kessler syndrome.

⬐ ClumsyPilot

That's not quite accurate. Firstly,the debris will destroy everything in LEO, maybe including ISS, then debit in a few months.

Secondly, some of the debris will probably end up in higher orbit and stay there for a long time, just like was the case with India and China ASAT tests. Then they can pose a risk for centuries

⬐ Rebelgecko

> Secondly, some of the debris will probably end up in higher orbit and stay there for a long time

The average height of the orbit may go up, but depending on the direction of the collision the perigee will decrease by some amount, so there will still be a considerable amount of atmospheric drag. The Chinese ASAT test was in a much higher orbit, which is why so much of the debris is still troublesome. Most of the debris from the Indian ASAT test is gone, and the rest will probably be gone in a year or two.

Kurzgesagt[1] convinced me that space debris will become a real problem if we're not careful. A "Swarm" of fist-sized cubesats whizzing around our planet at a few thousand km/h sounds like a nightmare.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU

⬐ Wowfunhappy

Possibly stupid question, but I've been wondering about this for a while:

Could space debris also make ICBM launches infeasible? If so, I honestly wonder whether the trade-off could be worthwhile.

⬐ NikkiA

Probably not, ICBMs don't need to attain a full useful LEO, they only need to stay in an orbital path for 1-2 orbits as current warhead delivery vehicles are configured. That would allow them to use an orbital path lower than any orbit that could be sustainable for debris.

Even if the current crop of ICBMs can't be configured to use such an orbit, development of such wouldn't take more than a few months.

⬐ mdorazio

FWIW, these satellites and others like them don’t really pose the threat you are referring to. They are designed to operate in a very low orbit that will decay in a couple of years, causing them to naturally burn up over time rather than remain as space junk.

This is relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU

⬐ throw0101a

See also anime:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes

No, the issue with space debris is that we are quickly approaching the point where a single unfortunately placed collision could chain using a sort of exponential “shotgun effect”, destroying virtually all satellites at a given orbit and rendering space travel impossible for decades if not centuries, setting human space exploration back significantly as launches have to deal with thousands of metal shards traveling at tens of thousands of mph.

See this video[1] by Kurzgesagt: “End of Space - Creating a Prison for Humanity.”

[1]: https://youtu.be/yS1ibDImAYU

<Deep breath>

1) Whataboutism doesn't help anyone. Two wrongs don't make a right.

2) India has the hindsight of history that the US and earlier Space programs didn't. Humanity did not consider these kinds of things earlier. Space was treated as essentially infinite. We now know better and know that this debree can cause a real threat to future space missions, even in the worst case dooming humanity to Earth as a prison[1].

By the way, the same applies to carbon emissions. Yes, the West got to industrialize by rampantly polluting the world. No, that doesn't mean China and India get a free pass for it.

Also, to the exploitation of countries/economies/people below you on the totem pole. Again, no free pass for what China is doing in Africa just because Europe did it for hundreds of years.

3) This is a slightly different point from (2), but back when Russia and US were rampantly launching rockets into space and exploding satellites, there wasn't a permanently occupied space station in orbit, crewed continuously by human beings from an international peaceful cooperating collective.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU

⬐ saiya-jin

Well, this was a political move, nothing more (or less). I presume you know about recent bombings in Kashmir, sovereign part of Indian territory since its creation of 1947. Done by terrorists most probably trained and equipped in Pakistan. Their secret service is very happy to do these kind of activities, not caring much who is current Pakistani president du jour. Kind of state within the state.

Where was/is US? Still supporting Pakistan, it really doesn't matter much what they do. Together with China. In light of these facts it doesn't seem so shocking, they had to do something. It doesn't make it right either obviously for all the reasons stated here, but I blame US and its stupid foreign policies for these kind of senseless escalations.

⬐ reitzensteinm

Who is giving China and India a free pass? It seems to me that the opposite is happening, where they're behind and very far behind the per capita emissions of Western countries respectively yet we're giving them shit instead of getting our own house in order.

Found it ironic that Branson called space 'Virgin Territory'.

There's a very good possibility that we'd be sending ourselves into the dark ages if space debris goes unmanaged. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU&

This is cool but now I'm more concerned in learning how launching micro satellites has become so easy for the masses which would be my opposite reaction normally. Meaning this is not without bad side effects. I watched "in a nutshell" about the end of space in that orbiting debris is becoming an issue as its an exponential threat over time as small debris moving at 20 K mph vaporizes things it comes in contact with, hence more debris, more collisions and so forth eventually creating a death shield to any incoming/outgoing space transport, effectively halting space travel for centuries. Here is that video FYI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU I don't see how this is helping but possibly there will be cleanup solutions.

⬐ garmaine

How? This isn’t launching space satellites.

⬐ MrBuddyCasino

Altough that would be awesome. Spin up additional satellites via API. Takes a few days until they’re online, but at least they stream the launch video feed in the AWS console.

Also, I think they kind of jumped the shark with this one.

⬐ jeffbarr

No sharks were jumped in the making of this service or blog post.

⬐ sebringj

The article mentions ubiquitous micro satellites. This tech is simply following from that although not directly stated in the title. The fact that these micro satellites are cheap and so easy to cookie cutter and deploy is great in terms of tech but seems to compound the issue of space debris. Anyway, just after becoming aware of this I was less enthusiastic about the communications aspects.

⬐ rtkwe

Down linking data has never been the particularly difficult part of working with a satellite though getting it up there with all the approvals that requires was and still is the major hurdle. Just because it's easy to downlink doesn't mean the FCC is going to suddenly rubberstamp every startup's 10k satellite constellation.

⬐ 7952

Depends how much data you want to downlink though. Sats in LEO have fairly small footprints and you can only get data when that footprint is over a ground station.

⬐ jrockway

I think he is concerned that now that there is an easy way to set up an antenna on the ground, there will be a wave of rocket launches sending new satellites into orbit.

Of course, setting up a radio receiver on the ground is not the hard part about launching satellites, so this is unlikely to change much. When AWS starts letting you launch satellites for $1.99/pound, then we can start worrying.

⬐ rcxdude

These micro-satellites are not high enough up for them or any debris to remain in orbit for a significant amount of time without station-keeping. Cube-sats will usually only last a few years before de-orbiting due to the very slight atmospheric drag at the height they operate. This is a deliberate decision to avoid the issue you mention (and the various space agencies do co-ordinate on this: see https://www.iadc-online.org/). They also have rules which apply to larger satellites which mean that mean if it does not have a naturally decaying orbit there needs to be a plan to de-orbit it or put it into a 'safe' orbit at end-of-life.

⬐ sebringj

thanks i should have looked into this more seems