[−]helterskelter2 · 2026-11-15 Sun 05:38 UTC ·
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> a world where regular companies can start to deploy mass infrastructure to space
If we don't start becoming much more careful, I expect we'll live to see the Kessler syndrome, perhaps sooner than we expect.
[−]somenameforme · 2026-11-15 Sun 06:19 UTC ·
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Well how are we going to have big problems to solve if we don't create them!? Snark aside, Kessler syndrome is probably 100% inevitable. Even ignoring development, there's geopolitics. Modern warfare heavily depends on eyes in the sky, and so on day 1 of direct war between two great powers, stuff in space is going to start going pop.
Fortunately it's not as bad as most think. You'd still be 100% capable of launching stuff into space, and even orbital rotations would still be viable, even if it would require more active maneuvering. It's not like it creates a giant impassable shield over Earth that'd just blot out the sky, but more like the odds of a collision per year on a given orbit would tend to increase dramatically.
And the biggest risk would be in stuff quite close to Earth since that's where it'd be the most energetic/fastest, and also where there's the least amount of space meaning the odds of a collision are relatively greatest. Fortunately, that's also the domain where drag is the greatest and where particles would most rapidly end up falling into the atmosphere and burning up, so the worst of it would clean itself up naturally on reasonably short timeframes, like days to months.
Low earth orbit can't sustain a Kessler syndrome for more than a few years. Atmospheric drag is too large. (And it gets proportionally larger for smaller fragments.)
Perhaps, but that's country club problems for their lifespan. I think pollution on earth is a much more worthy issue to allocate resources towards. A lot of Earth's problems won't solve themselves with time.
If we don't start becoming much more careful, I expect we'll live to see the Kessler syndrome, perhaps sooner than we expect.
Fortunately it's not as bad as most think. You'd still be 100% capable of launching stuff into space, and even orbital rotations would still be viable, even if it would require more active maneuvering. It's not like it creates a giant impassable shield over Earth that'd just blot out the sky, but more like the odds of a collision per year on a given orbit would tend to increase dramatically.
And the biggest risk would be in stuff quite close to Earth since that's where it'd be the most energetic/fastest, and also where there's the least amount of space meaning the odds of a collision are relatively greatest. Fortunately, that's also the domain where drag is the greatest and where particles would most rapidly end up falling into the atmosphere and burning up, so the worst of it would clean itself up naturally on reasonably short timeframes, like days to months.
I guess that gives the rebels time to organise for the next wave of fragmentation and shrapnel launches.