At this point I feel we’d just be immunising the rest of the universe from human stupidity.
Comment on Datacenters in space are a terrible, horrible, no good idea.
Ftumch@lemmy.today 2 days ago
There’s another problem that nobody mentions. Putting thousands of additional satellites into space would seriously increase the risk of Kessler Syndrome occurring.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 days ago
echodot@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Little bit of a nitpick but Kessler syndrome doesn’t care about how many satellites you have, and more about how many dead satellites you have hanging around on random orbits. You could put hundreds of millions of satellites in space as long as you had some sort of decommissioned program. You can always send up rockets if you can just move the satellites out of the way / know where they are.
Ftumch@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Dead satellites do add a much larger risk than satellites that can be steered, sure. If we stopped steering all our satellites right now, I believe it’d only take a few days before a collision occurred.
However, every satellite in orbit adds to the risk, especially if a chain reaction starts happening and it becomes very hard to avoid the shrapnel flying around. Or if a once-in-a-century-type solar flare takes out a bunch of satellites.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This isn’t true for low orbit items. They will come down on their own in ~5 years.
At the absolute worst case scenario, we’d be blocked or ~5 years. R
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 2 days ago
Collisions in LEO can chuck debris into orbits which intersect higher orbits. If one of those collides with something in in said higher orbits, you have a problem.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Any orbit resulting from a collision will pass through that collision point unless there’s another collision to change it’s velocity again. The higher a collision sends an object, the more likely the “orbit” intersects with more atmosphere to cause drag, or it might even collide with the ground without drag.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s possible it could go to a higher orbit, but we don’t have mega constellations in those orbits. I’m don’t know enough to know how far something could get flung up either, but I suspect if you’re in a 5y orbit, you aren’t reaching a 50y orbit area, and probably not even a 10y orbit area.
echodot@feddit.uk 1 day ago
I sincerely doubt that a collision in low earth orbit is going to result in debris being flicked up into geostationary orbits, the energy differences involved are just monumental.