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119 points cratermoon | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.52s | source
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mapt ◴[] No.42198516[source]
The current trajectory is that SpaceX proved the commercial and military viability of an LEO megaconstellation, repeatedly lowering their target altitudes and raising their satellite count because of debris and cell size concerns...

And now the rest of the world is trying to catch up in a sort of arms race, and not taking any care about debris concerns. The most tempting orbits are the ones in upper LEO that permit them to launch fewer satellites.

SpaceX are going to end up well under 500km (orbital lifespan: a decade) before things are finished, and they switched to very low orbit staging with SEP spiral out to reach final orbit a ways back.

China's newest constellation Thousand Sails is at an altitude of 800km (orbital lifespan: thousands of years), with a thousand satellites in the works over the next year or so and 14,000 planned, and they're launching them using chemical upper stages designed to explode into a thousand pieces at the target altitude. This is sufficient for Kessler Syndrome all on its own, without counting interactions with anything else up there. A catastropic debris cascade at 800km percolates down to lower altitudes over time and impacts.

We need viable treaties limiting development beyond 400 or 500km and we need them ten years ago.

I don't know how to sell the urgency of this predicament. You can have as many satellites as you want, a million uncoordinated bodies, at 400km because direct collision potential scales with (satellite count / orbital lifespan) ^2 . At 1000km, satellites decay so slowly we are already too crowded; we have already overused the space. We are speed-running the end of the space age and we are doing it to save a small number of dollars and to avoid a small amount of diplomacy.

This is not something we get a do-over on. There is no practical way to collect ton-scale debris at present, no way to track kilogram-scale debris, no practical way to shield pressure vessels against gram-scale debris, and even milligram-scale debris can hit with the force of a bullet. After collisions start occurring at a rapid clip, the mass of potential impactors quickly forms a long tailed lognormal distribution that denies us space for centuries.

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PittleyDunkin ◴[] No.42203453[source]
> We need viable treaties limiting development beyond 400 or 500km and we need them ten years ago.

Basically every other interest on earth is going to see this as the west exploiting space then pulling the ladder up after them. It's the same reason why hoping developing countries will stop using coal is ridiculous. We need to foot the bill to clean up after ourselves or people will just ignore us and do what they see they need to do regardless.

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MichaelZuo ◴[] No.42203845[source]
Yeah unless all the orbits under 500 km are also annulled and put up for negotiation too, most countries would never accept it.

And even then the negotiation process will take decades so that means no LEO satellites available for anyone for several decades.

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schiffern ◴[] No.42205678[source]

  > all the orbits under 500 km are also annulled and put up for negotiation
Unnecessary. There's plenty of space (no pun intended) to operate at those altitudes, even with existing and planned satellite constellations.

The real issue is regulatory, not technical. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42199498

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MichaelZuo ◴[] No.42206680[source]
An HN user’s opinion doesn’t matter in the context of how countries decide in international diplomacy…?

How does this make sense? Other countries could clearly decide however they like, because they don’t need to come to the negotiating table.

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1. schiffern ◴[] No.42218630[source]
It's not my opinion. The ITU permitting system described in my link is the (negotiated) international system that exists today. If you're suggesting it might be re-negotiated to allow latecomers to build constellations below 500 km, then we agree.

However your idea of "annulling" permits already given out isn't necessary, or politically feasible, or even desirable.

"Annulling" is just one HN user's jealous destruction fantasy.

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2. MichaelZuo ◴[] No.42229672[source]
Are you confusing me with someone else, or have you gone deranged?

I was the one who implied the status quo, i.e. countries putting things into orbit way above 500km and nobody stopping them, is likely to prevail… with even the next best alternative very unlikely to happen.