I had to find a couple of papers for one of my students to review and I just looked at all the new papers on satellite observations and predictions for satellite pollution and now I am super depressed.
What's currently playing out in Low Earth Orbit is the worst parts of capitalism, on fast-forward (literally at several km/s if you want to get technical...) It's so bad. Orbit needs strong, international regulation 20 years ago.
I just dug up a presentation from almost exactly 2 years ago and it says "almost 1,500 Starlinks in orbit" and that just makes me want to cry. Because today there are more than 4200. Including a batch launched yesterday. This is so stupid.
If you can make it to DC Sunday afternoon and Monday, they'll book you three meetings with US Congressmember offices.
You mentioned regulation - do you think rules should focus on the number of satellites, or how reflective they can be, or something else? And what should happen to existing problem satellites?
@ethergear@sundogplanets I was working on philosophy of space exploration in '00s. Low Earth Orbit becoming unusable due to debris was a serious concern in scientific communty even back then, and people were well aware that unless effective action was taken, things would only get worse.
Just like people knew about dangers of consumerism and climate change, I might add...
This was known. Scientific community tried to communicate its concern. But no one wanted to listen. And here we are.
It's not very flattering for humanity to enter the new realm of space showing our worst side, namely mindless polluting and habitual destruction of fragile environments, first.
Low Earth Orbit is in as bad condition as it is, because as a space environment, it can not heal and mitigate damage inflicted upon it in the same way as living ecosystems can.
@ReimanSaara@ethergear Many of the pieces of junk will eventually spiral down and crash into Earth (the smallest bits will burn up in the atmosphere and not reach the ground). But it'll take centuries or even longer at the higher altitude orbits. So it kind of will "heal" itself, just not in our lifetimes (like many ecosystems)
@sundogplanets@ethergear Earth's orbit could be considered a "borderline environment" compared to, say, Moon.
As debris increases, also collisions become more commonplace and create even more junk. Even small pieces of that cause significant risks for functioning equipment on orbit (including space stations with people inside), and of course smaller pieces may be more difficult to find and get rid of.
So...at current rate of pollution, how long you estimate Low Earth Orbit remains usable?
@ReimanSaara@ethergear I'm pretty sure we've already crossed the point of Kessler Syndrome with sats and debris - but it's not necessarily a fast process. If we stopped all launches tomorrow, the number of collisions over time would continue to increase, but slowly. However, companies (particularly SpaceX) are still launching like mad. So it might get faster :(
@sundogplanets@ethergear Philosophers being great utopists, I remember that back when I was working on this subject, making launchers to participate in cleanup effort was an idea that gained quite a bit of support.Guess that was only in my circles, though...
The thing is, companies (including SpaceX) launch profit in mind. While cleanup solutions cost, so does losing equipment and failing of ambitious projects. Too bad our orbital backyard is not easily visible to naked eye or stink, I guess.
@ethergear Thanks for this heads-up! I am extremely unlikely to participate in this (I'm Canada-based) But I'll definitely try to get in touch with astronomers who are going in person!
@sundogplanets 4200 precious Earth orbits consumed with no fees, few restrictions, for the financial benefit of a billionaire, and at the cost of everyone else.
I just had a chat with a filmmaker who is making a documentary about Boca Chica TX and our shifting baselines, specifically for the night sky. His film is going to be amazing, and maybe will make a difference by telling loads of people what's happening in orbit (and on the ground). I feel a bit more hopeful!
@jeremiah@sundogplanets There's no technical solutions at this point in time, in part because there are no financial incentives to create one. An international body needs to be established not only to regulate LEO, but also likely to spearhead the development of cleanup tech to deorbit junk that can no longer deorbit under its own power.
@JessTheUnstill My suspicion was that there definitely wasn't a technical solution. It's kind of troubling that it's not something that already exists within NASA (I know that's underfunded too).
@sundogplanets with spacex, starlink, space weapons testing, and now amazon, we're speeding towards the Kessler Syndrome faster than the Millennium Falcon. : (
Without some massive intervention we're going to hit a Kessler cascade. Not any ifs, ands or buts. And in so doing, Musk'll render the entirety of LEO functionally unusable for pretty much everyone. Like having satellite radio and high-end GPS on your everything? Too bad, sucks to be you, time to go back to paper maps and FM.
@sundogplanets
Why should we look at the rest of the universe? What has the rest of the universe ever done for us?
– satellite company executives, probably
@sundogplanets who in govt (Canada and US) could spearhead this effort? It can't just be astronomers. I only know of two who are knowledgeable & sympathetic in the US: Tammy Duckworth and Kamala Harris and even they don't consider intl orbital agreements to be high priority.
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