
The sky's gone dark - andyjohnson0
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/09/the-skys-gone-dark.html
======
lemevi
If you hadn't had enough scary sounding possible future calamities that you as
an individual have no control over to worry about, here's another. My anxiety
system for these kinds of things broke back when peak oil turned out to not be
a thing (well as described). There lots of things to be concerned about where
we as individuals can make better choices, such as sustainable living and not
contributing to carbon emissions, but stuff like this, while something I'm not
going to ignore because it's at the very least interesting, I can't feel
anxiety about.

I just don't have the capacity to be anxious every minute of my life for
everything that could possibly go wrong for us someday in the future.

~~~
jfoutz
Peak oil kinda happened. All of the abundant easy to access oil is gone. We're
gradually moving to other sources like offshore and fracking while using more
technology in existing locations like pumping seawater into old wells to get
more out of them.

Tech has done wonderful things to keep costs down, but it's a lot tougher to
get that barrel of oil now days. I think there are, at least to some degree,
costs being offset by increased risk. Deepwater horizon is a pretty obvious
example. Groundwater contamination from fracking is another. I think the price
per barrel has been on a steady downward trend, but I'd bet that including the
environmental impact just from accessing (not burning) oil, we're paying more.
I'm not aware of any such study.

In any case, we're the first, but also last technological civilization to use
oil. If a wizard waved a magic wand, and we were suddenly sent back to a
1700's level of technology, i don't see how we'd be able to get much oil at
all. It's not bubbling up out of the ground anywhere anymore. The easy stuff
is gone. there's no way to get the hard stuff by hand.

~~~
barney54
Other than the fact that there isn't evidence of fracking contaminating
groundwater...

~~~
jfoutz
huh. weird. I thought it was known to be happening, but not yet widespread.

[http://ofmpub.epa.gov/eims/eimscomm.getfile?p_download_id=52...](http://ofmpub.epa.gov/eims/eimscomm.getfile?p_download_id=523326)
"We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread,
systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States. Of the
potential mechanisms identified in this report, we found specific instances
where one or more mechanisms led to impacts on drinking water resources,
including contamination of drinking water wells. The number of identified
cases, however, was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured
wells. "

Also the sort of vague claim with no support that "well it hasn't happened
yet" is kind of annoying. Nothing is zero risk. we can argue about
p(bad_things) <.001 or .1 or whatever, but i think it's foolish to just
pretend everything will be sunshine and rainbows forever.

~~~
ethbro
I actually asked a family member who is an ecologically minded geologist about
this (while we were at Yellowstone, no less). He said the primary issues now
are twofold.

1) Law relating to public land use is terrible and biases insanely in the way
of leasing for exploitation. In that the government is both required by law to
lease and that the price is far shy of what a market would support (as it
hasn't been updated in decades)

2) Inspection and fining of terrestrial operations is typically more self-
reported (though only necessary if "sufficient" oil / chemicals have spilled).
Measures are then put in place _afterwards_ to monitor the well / location.

Admittedly, he wasn't in legal, but thought I'd share. Also, have to put a
plug, if anyone has a lead on good-conscience geology jobs looking for someone
with a BSc, I'd be thrilled to forward you on to him (contact me at
{username}.co at gmail). He could have made easy money working in petrogeology
but felt that wasn't something he could support.

------
Symmetry
Kessler Syndrome is a serious potential problem and it's certainly one people
should be worrying about but it's mostly something that's only a problem for
LEO where you have lots of things in a relatively small volume going very fast
in different directions.

Further out in MEO where GPS satellites are there's a much greater volume,
fewer satellites, and the satellites aren't moving as fast. There's no way
Kessler Syndrome is going to start there. You do have a bunch of Russian
satellites that loop in fast and close by the South Pole then go high and slow
over the North, letting them spend most of their time being visible from
Russia. Debris from from a cascade could kill one of those, which would cause
debris that would kill some but not all of the GPS sats. It would be a
relatively slow process compared to what would go on in LEO, though.

Satellites in GEO won't need to worry about Kessler at all. They're all in
equatorial orbits, traveling in the same direction at the same speed. If one
explodes its debris will only hit other satellites with the explosion
velocity, not orbital velocity. So those should survive Kessler Syndrome fine,
though you can't put any new ones there.

Also, Kessler Syndrom isn't forever. Satellites in LEO need to boost every
once in a while to overcome atmospheric drag. As things get broken up their
surface area to volume ratio increases and the fall out of orbit faster. Air
density falls of exponentially with height so the lower reaches of orbit will
become safe first. The inner reaches of LEO might be clear quickly but I have
no idea how long it would be before orbit was totally clear.

~~~
al_biglan
Came here to say the same thing. Will also add: If LEO does get polluted,
there are options to put (more expensive) satellites into MEO. At this point,
it becomes an economic argument to "clean" or "push upwards"

------
clarkmoody
Researchers at Texas A&M University[1] have been working on this problem with
NASA JSC for years.

The approach has been to go after the large spent boosters (a few thousand of
them), since they contain the most mass of any class of debris objects. Each
upper-stage booster has a rocket nozzle that makes a great target for
grappling.

As other comments have noted, the main issue is actually deciding to spend
money bringing down orbital debris. As with many other issues we face, this is
another case of kicking the can down the road, and we may not address it until
the collision cascade has started :-/

[1]
[http://lasr.tamu.edu/research/proxops/#Debris_Removal](http://lasr.tamu.edu/research/proxops/#Debris_Removal)

~~~
__d
Having expended vast amounts of energy to get it up there, it seems a shame to
bring it back down again.

I'm hoping to see a cleanup driven by a desire to reclaim the constituent
metals, etc, without a need to boost them out of the gravity well.

------
nabla9
BRUTE FORCE MODELING OF THE KESSLER SYNDROME, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory
[http://www.amostech.com/TechnicalPapers/2012/Orbital_Debris/...](http://www.amostech.com/TechnicalPapers/2012/Orbital_Debris/NIKOLAEV.pdf)

Interesting paper where supercomputer was used to simulate the increase of
particles greater than 10 cm in size over 100 years with high temporal
resolution.

Results for BAU (business and usual) and BAU-d business as usual with
decreasing breakup rate don't look so good: _" linear growth of the catalog
size with time, to ~65,000 objects by year 2100."_ 100 years from now there
will be 50 conjunctions per day and 3 collisions per year.

~~~
nateberkopec
I don't understand - what's the difference between a conjunction and a
collision?

~~~
nabla9
Conjunction is close approach between two orbiting objects.

Satellites may have to execute collision avoidance maneuvers and burn
expensive fuel resources if the predicted trajectory brings debris too close
for comfort.

------
27182818284
If you would like to read a highly entertaining science-fiction novel about
the stars going out, I couldn't recommend [http://www.amazon.com/Spin-Robert-
Charles-Wilson/dp/07653482...](http://www.amazon.com/Spin-Robert-Charles-
Wilson/dp/076534825X/) enough.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Seveneves is a bit more similar to what the article describes.
[http://www.amazon.com/Seveneves-Novel-Neal-
Stephenson/dp/006...](http://www.amazon.com/Seveneves-Novel-Neal-
Stephenson/dp/0062334514)

~~~
monochromatic
And a great book in general.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Eh, I thought the last third was a letdown.

~~~
monochromatic
I agree. I still enjoyed the book though.

------
ble
Practically every form of debris removal is also a pretty good anti-satellite
weapon.

Additionally, a not-too-unreasonable interpretation of current international
treaties would lead one to conclude that piece of junk, inoperable satellite X
(or a piece of debris that comes off of it) is still owned by country Y,
interfering with it is a violation of Y's sovereignty, etc. This is to be
contrasted with the seas where there are some kind of established norms about
the wreckage of ships, abandoned ships, etc.

I kinda want to bone up on the relevant treaties and/or agreements about Earth
orbit and other planets.

~~~
clarkmoody
> other planets

Interesting to think about, but I have a feeling that once you land on another
celestial body, all property will be determined by homestead until a
_significant_ number of humans arrive later.

Imagine: there you are on Mars, building your habitat structure in a nice
crater when the phone rings and NASA says, "Hey, you can't build there, since
that's Russia's crater." Your response _should_ be, "Well, when Russia gets
here, they can move me off of their property."

The ability to enforce property rights is vastly reduced without a local
presence representing your interests. Yes, there could be conflict over it
here on Earth, but for the people actually off-world, it has no actual
enforcement mechanism, especially on one-way missions. Any such treaties and
agreements made now are purely for show and political gain by those parties
involved.

~~~
scrollaway
> it has no actual enforcement mechanism, especially on one-way missions

Could always send some weaponized rockets. They don't need to be there in
person to enforce, I'd say.

(And I'm sure this violates a bunch of treaties but... eh.)

~~~
clarkmoody
Also a very bad PR play, especially since there are no humans going to possess
the property. It's just a rocket sent to blow up the trespassers.

------
jcromartie
Isn't most of the debris moving in the same direction? I'm imagining that
being in orbit is like being on the freeway, where the traffic is all running
the same direction. Yes, getting hit by a car going 70 MPH would normally be
catastrophic, but two cars bumping into each other around 70 MPH is not always
a big deal.

~~~
ceejayoz
Enough satellites are in polar/retrograde orbits to be an issue. Explosions
from Chinese/US anti-satellite tests and accidental collisions go every which
way, as well.

~~~
Symmetry
The satellite that the US shot down was in a swiftly decaying orbit. That
means that the periphrasis for all the debris was at least that far down and
with the smaller ballistic coefficient of the debris it's all gone now.

------
peeters
> Even a fleck of shed paint a tenth of a millimeter across carries as much
> kinetic energy as a rifle bullet when it's traveling at orbital velocity

True, but most of the other objects near it are _also_ at or near orbital
speed, so what's the kinetic energy when compared to an object it would
actually be likely to hit?

(The situation in _Gravity_ made no sense to me. The shuttle encounters the
debris field every 90 minutes...why was that debris not also orbiting the
earth with roughly the same period as the shuttle?)

Is the solution a matter of countries agreeing to "lanes" for orbits that
differ non-trivially? (e.g. 300-330km is reserved for equatorial orbits,
340-360 km is reserved for polar orbits, 380-400km is reserved for retrograde
orbits)

~~~
TorKlingberg
If they orbit in opposite directions, the relative speed is twice the orbital
speed. Low earth orbits go in all kinds of directions. In geostationary orbit
everything is moving in more or less the same direction and speed.

~~~
peeters
I really didn't think there was that much variety in LEO due to the cost of
launching in a retrograde orbit. I thought it'd be mainly prograde plus some
normal velocity due to inclination.

~~~
TorKlingberg
Retrograde orbits are uncommon as far as I know, but polar orbits are common
for earth observation. A satellite going south could meet one going north.

Also unless you launch from the equator inclined orbits are cheaper to reach
than equatorial. The ISS for example goes just far enough north to pass the
Baikonur Cosmodrome.

------
daenz
Dumb question, but can't we put some giant blocks of single-piece kevlar-ish
material in orbit? I imagine they would have no chance for breaking apart and
would just serve as "bullet" catchers for these small pieces of debris.

~~~
ble
Hypervelocity is very high velocity, approximately over 3,000 meters per
second (6,700 mph, 11,000 km/h, 10,000 ft/s, or Mach 8.8). In particular,
hypervelocity is velocity so high that the strength of materials upon impact
is very small compared to inertial stresses. Thus, even metals behave like
fluids under hypervelocity impact.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervelocity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervelocity)

The orbital velocity needed to maintain a stable low Earth orbit is about 7.8
km/s, but reduces with increased orbital altitude.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit)

------
outworlder
We'd have to adapt.

Plans to colonize Mars and the like would have to be postponed.

Important satellites would have to hug Earth's atmosphere to stay (somewhat)
safe. They could look somewhat like this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Field_and_Steady-
State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Field_and_Steady-
State_Ocean_Circulation_Explorer)

More fiber optic cabling would be required. Local stations to retransmit
information would have to be created (or existing infrastructure, such as
cellphone towers, would be retrofitted).

And so on. We'd do fine, I guess. But not without an enormous cost.

------
rmc
Neal Stephenson's latest novel, Seveneves, starts with essentially this
premise, but with debris of the Moon.

~~~
masklinn
The Planetes manga starts with space debris and the risk thereof, but
terrorists outright attempting to trigger a Kessler event is a big subplot

~~~
mfoy_
There's an anime adaptation that's very well done. It explored the ideas of
debris in space and clean-up efforts surrounding it pretty neatly.

~~~
shpx
Planetes is my favourite anime, though granted I haven't watched many.

I'm not sure if the logistics make sense though, I haven't done the math but I
would imagine that the amount of fuel needed to change orbits would either be
prohibitively expensive or you would spend months before returning to the base
station.

------
DanBC
NASA has an Orbital Debris website.

[http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/](http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/)

It has some nice photos of some of the impacts that spacecraft have had.

\---

Reading cstross's post at a tangent: I'm interested in how viable it is for a
well funded technological terror group (like Aum Shinrikyo used to be) or
"rogue nation" to dump a few tons of sand and grit (or depleted uranium, for
the mass) into the correct orbits.

------
yourapostasy
Stross has rarely-found pragmatism and realism in personally-held and
publicly-shared opinions about space colonization for a popular science
fiction author. While professionally he writes about a human future where we
travel the stars, the TL;DR is personally, he holds that with our current
understanding of physics, our meat sack bodies will never colonize space.
Explore yes, but mass-exodus-colonization or even plant-seed-colonization-for-
independent-colony is a pipe dream; he doesn't see the proof that we are
capable of even colonizing the solar system, but leaves an open door to invite
in that proof.

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/space-
ca...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/space-cadets.html)

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2007/06/the_high...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html)

So a Kessler Cascade definitely sucks, but it isn't an "OMG, humanity loses
its 'birthright to the stars'!" catastrophe because we can't GET to the stars
for the foreseeable future, barring a Copernican-grade revolution in physics
and accompanying engineering that opens a hitherto-unknown means of multiple
magnitudes FTL transportation of the peta- to tetra-tons of mass associated
with an en masse out-migration to the stars scenario.

This has interesting implications (I happen to strongly agree with his
analysis) for how we set and carry out future policy, if you want to figure
out means of nudging our species' survival odds upwards over the long haul
(Long Now Foundation, millennia to millions of years scale).

------
riffraff
isn't the likelihood of a cascade very low because of the orbit thing? I.e.
object X hits Y, they both spin out of control but most likely they will
either go towards earth or go away from it, so they chance of them hitting
something else is very limited, it's not like billiard balls that would
eventually hit each other.

~~~
catpolice
There's also a really, really large amount of space for maneuvering up there.
Keep in mind the surface area of the sphere that's at 36,000 km from the
ground (approx. average satellite orbit height) is ~22,567,880,697 km - that's
entirely disregarding vertical room for maneuvering.

~~~
oldpond
I am sure there are hot spots or rings of higher density corresponding to
earth locations. Still, it's big.

------
snowwrestler
> Even a fleck of shed paint a tenth of a millimeter across carries as much
> kinetic energy as a rifle bullet when it's traveling at orbital velocity,

Relative to an object stationary on the ground, yes. But every satellite is
already moving at orbital velocity itself. If two satellites are orbiting in
the same direction and one blows up, its pieces will not hit the other with
full orbital velocity.

> any launch at all becomes a game of Russian roulette.

Maybe if the situation gets this bad, then the mitigation actually gets
easier: just send up a lot of cheap big rockets on parabolic trajectories to
orbital height. They will get hit, all the pieces will fall below orbital
velocity, and fall down into the atmosphere. We could even launch cheap
parabolic trajectory "blockers" to clear holes in the debris field for
launches to higher orbits or escape trajectories.

~~~
titzer
They aren't all moving in the same direction. Have a look:
[http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OrbitsCatalog/](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OrbitsCatalog/)

------
applecore
Do we really believe that science, if faced with the immense challenge of
orbiting debris, won't find a way to regain access to orbit?

When did we become so pessimistic?

~~~
nabla9
Economics is usually more important factor than science. Science provides
possibilities, economics selects those possibilities that are realized.

Instead of building those sci-fi space stations and exploring plants that has
been scientific possibility for decades, we have realized and exceeded our
sci-fi dreams in computers, internet and mobile phones.

If billion people spend $10 per month on something, there is economic
incentive to spend billions in technological research.

------
DarkTree
"Even a fleck of shed paint a tenth of a millimeter across carries as much
kinetic energy as a rifle bullet when it's traveling at orbital velocity"

Just wow.

~~~
theandrewbailey
XKCD What if: [https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/)

~~~
mrmcd
"This means that if an astronaut on the ISS listens to I'm Gonna Be, in the
time between the first beat of the song and the final lines ... they will have
traveled just about exactly 1,000 miles."

[https://www.google.com/webhp?q=1000%20miles%20%2F%208%20km%2...](https://www.google.com/webhp?q=1000%20miles%20%2F%208%20km%2Fs)

WHOA

------
seren
On that subject, I recommend to read _Spin_ by Robert Charles Wilson. It is
not exactly a Kessler syndrome, but for some reason, one day a kind of
dome/membrane encloses the Earth blocking communication with every satellite.
(Physical objects can still go through as far as I recall, but since you can't
communicate with them, it is not that interesting)

This is good sci-fi book who won the Hugo award about the societal impact
(with somewhat weaker sequel, but still enjoyable in their own way)

------
emilburzo
Webcache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.a...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.antipope.org%2Fcharlie%2Fblog-
static%2F2015%2F09%2Fthe-skys-gone-
dark.html&oq=cache%3Awww.antipope.org%2Fcharlie%2Fblog-
static%2F2015%2F09%2Fthe-skys-gone-
dark.html&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.871j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8)

~~~
brickmort
thanks!

------
tylermauthe
Future business opportunity: Space Garbage Reclamation. I'm only half-joking
here, it would be a net benefit to anyone trying to put things into space by
avoiding Kessler Syndrome and the junk itself could be valuable. Once we have
space-based fabrication facilities, any materials that are already in space
are much more valuable than those same materials on Earth.

~~~
zacharypinter
I believe there's an Anime series around this idea:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes)

------
mark-r
If this comes to pass, Google's project Loon won't look so looney.
[http://www.wired.com/2014/06/google-balloons-year-
later/](http://www.wired.com/2014/06/google-balloons-year-later/)

Unfortunately I don't think there's any feasible replacement for GPS
satellites.

~~~
protomyth
Ground stations can replace GPS. It might not be universal, but it for people
inside a country it would work.

[http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-08/ground-
base...](http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-08/ground-based-analog-
gps-could-make-positioning-technology-accurate-inches)

------
russnewcomer
I'm not read enough to understand exactly how the Kessler Syndrome scenario
cstross proposes would interact with GPS, but significantly naval spending by
the Superpowers is the big powers is the major effect I can easily see. When
you have to protect undersea communication lines for military command and
control (assuming the Kessler Syndrome would be a convenient way for hostile
nations to launch attacks against other nation's orbital assets), meaning
drone warfare becomes untenable outside a direct LOS engagement if undersea
lines are not secured.

I also think there would be a major issue with weather satellites and
prediction, causing a significant investment to be made in weather radar and
alternative weather prediction and monitoring strategies.

~~~
creshal
> I'm not read enough to understand exactly how the Kessler Syndrome scenario
> cstross proposes would interact with GPS

GPS needs 24 satellites to function as planned. (It might work with less, but
12 seem to be the minimum under optimal conditions).

• If a Kessler cascade happens in the GPS satellites' orbits, it will rapidly
disable existing GPS satellites, and deny access to said orbits for new
satellites. Replacements could be launched into safe orbits, but this will
likely take years, and those orbits will have a faster decay rate and less
visibility (so you'd need even _more_ satellites).

• A Kessler cascade in LEO will likely deny access to higher orbits, so while
existing GPS satellites will continue to function, they cannot be feasibly
replaced once their 10-30 years life span is exhausted.

~~~
marcosdumay
I don't get how a Kessler cascade in LEO would deny access to higher orbits.

Can collisions become so common that staying in LEO for a fraction of a day is
already dangerous? How many debris are we talking about here?

------
achr2
How does space debris reach a stable enough orbit that it doesn't just fall
into the atmosphere and burn up? Also (maybe depending on the first question)
wouldn't the chaotic nature of space debris collisions cause less stable
orbits?

~~~
DasIch
The debris doesn't have to reach stable orbits. The debris gets created in
orbits that are already stable. It's also important to consider that stable in
this context doesn't mean that the debris stays up there forever, it's just
staying long enough to be a problem.

------
rdsubhas
Why not just launch a big magnet into orbit and stick 'em all together?

EDIT: serious question

------
valarauca1
Couldn't researchers just adopt basic fission calculations to work for this
application?

I mean its fundamentally the same problem. Large particles being impacted by
smaller particles causing them to emit _more_ smaller particles. I tried to
work though this yesterday, but I'm not sure how to translate the free-space
constant to orbital-scale units.

~~~
marcosdumay
At the very minimum, the elasticity is completely different. Also, in one case
particles are hold within a lattice, while on the other they are completely
free to move in any direction. And there are orbits to think about, while on
the other case the deciding factor is particles leaving the lattice...

Well, I don't think calculations would look any alike.

~~~
valarauca1
From the preservative of satellites (and items ejected from them) in the same
orbit, they're motions are fixed to each other. They only appear in motion
from a 3rd party observer on the ground, or in a different orbital.

------
SZJX
I don't think the human beings will have no solution in hand for such a
critical situation. Clearing up the debris to a good enough extent such that
we can launch things normally won't be that hard at all, when hundreds of
billions of dollars are at disposal. I'm not worried about this one.

------
chrispeel
I was just listening to a show about predictions of the end of the world
([http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/latter-day-
predictions](http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/latter-day-predictions)), which
seems appropriate. The sky is falling!

~~~
eric_the_read
The problem is that the sky _isn 't_ falling! It's just... sitting there.

------
tomek_zemla
Basically, once we are done covering Earth in garbage we will make sure we do
the same to the sky... How human!

~~~
waqf
Second Law of Thermodynamics, to call that "human" seems like unjustified
exceptionalism.

------
Aardwolf
I guess all kinds of ways to handle it will appear if it is important enough,
saying it will all go dark seems a bit too strong. Shielding. Special shapes
to minimize impact. Smart avoidance movements. Continuous automatic cleanup of
space debris. Etc...

------
freddref
If space debris can be detected and tracked, a fleet of garbage
collector/deflector bots could clean the path in front of functioning
satellites.

Though a giant block of expanding foam might be cheaper.

------
maxerickson
I feel pretty confident that navigation and communications would stay about
the same, at least the social aspects pointed at in the question (different
tech would be used, but so what).

Weather forecasting isn't all that important, warnings for hurricanes would
probably be about the same. So there would be some inconveniences, but nothing
huge.

The geopolitics is the interesting question. I wonder what sort of imaging
capability could be attained by strapping systems to commercial flights and
fiddling flight paths to increase coverage. That would require international
cooperation, but maybe there's enough political will to make it happen.

~~~
DanBC
> Weather forecasting isn't all that important

Have you ever farmed? Or piloted a boat on a sea?

~~~
maxerickson
There is a difference between being very useful and being critical.

You list scenarios where good forecasts reduce risks, but the lack of them
would not stop people farming or going out on the sea.

~~~
DanBC
Okay, so these activities become drastically more expensive. That means that
food is more expensive to grow, and to transport. This makes food from
overseas harder to get.

(You might want to look at modern pea farming. I use peas because they don't
seem like an exotic crop, but the process is pretty tech heavy. Peas are cheap
(and fresh) because we have excellent short range weather forecasting.)

~~~
maxerickson
Your use of drastic and my dismissal of the problem look like competing
opinions to me. I looked briefly for something about peas and didn't come up
with anything, do you think a good discussion of the process would have clear
information pointing to a drastic price increase?

------
Apocryphon
On the bright side, imagine the orbital competitions that will result between
megacorps and billionaires with space hotrods. Kessler Run, anybody?

~~~
soperj
Kessel run?

------
paulsutter
> Postulate a runaway Kessler syndrome kicks off around 2030, at a point when
> there are thousands of small comsats (and a couple of big space stations),
> ranging from very low orbits to a couple of thousand kilometers up. Human
> access to space is completely restricted; any launch at all becomes a game
> of Russian roulette.

Postulate? This article hasn't got a shred of calculation to give any hint
when this becomes a problem. Is this a 2030 problem or a 2300 problem? No
data.

~~~
freehunter
It's a problem right now because we just don't know. It could happen tomorrow.
It could happen in 2300. It's all chance. Like the example given of running
across a field while machine guns blaze away. You might cross 100 times and be
safe. I try to cross once and I'm gone. All we know is, our odds increase with
each item we put in orbit.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its measurable and predictable. A model has to be built is all. Nothing
magical or unknowable about it. I agree with the idea that we should, fairly
easily, be able to answer questions like "when will this become critical"

Further, its not a single happening - its a process modeled by a differential
equation including terms for orbital decay, particle distribution over time,
solar wind, new launches etc.

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shiftpgdn
If it got bad couldn't we just send up a big cube of ballistics gel with some
rockets and grab everything with that?

~~~
russnewcomer
Not to be flippant, but I don't think that would scale well enough.

"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-
bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to
the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." Douglas Adams, The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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brianbarker
So a drone rocket that hovers around in orbit and shoots down debris sounds
like another startup idea.

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sergiotapia
>There are some proposals to mitigate the risk of Kessler Syndrome by using
microsats to recover and deorbit larger bits of debris, and lasers to
evaporate smaller particles, but let's ignore these for now: whether or not
they work, they don't work unless we start using them before Kessler syndrome
kicks in.

Lol, ok then let's ignore proposed solutions.

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natch
The worst collision so far was deliberately caused by the Chinese military.
Good job guys, way to show what a great country you are:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-
satellite_mi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-
satellite_missile_test)

~~~
thu
You should read the parts where it says US has done similar tests and that "In
response to US weaponisation of space, the Chinese started a space defense
program, including anti-satellite defense."

That being said, this is a great example related to the OP (e.g. number and
sizes of tracked debris and for how long they remain dangerous).

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blisterpeanuts
Eventually we'll have to use some combination of extreme ship armor (meter-
thick plating of expired uranium?) and lasers that detect and zap all
particles (that aren't human shaped) within 1 km of the spacecraft.

~~~
aetherson
Boosting the kind of armor into orbit that would be necessary to deal with at
least the worse scenarios is unfeasible. If you think that cost-to-orbit is
high _now_...

~~~
blisterpeanuts
True, and probably we'd have to either mine/manufacture the armor in space, or
else develop some less expensive heavy lifting technologies (which is pretty
much necessary anyway, if we're going to put up more manned space stations and
interplanetary craft).

