Sunday, 26 April 2020

How the Kessler Syndrome can end all space exploration and destroy modern life

quote [ He predicted that the number of objects that we keep launching into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) can create such a dense environment above the planet that inevitable collisions could cause a cascading effect. ]

Look we're you're leaving dat spacetrash.
[SFW] [science & technology] [+3 Good]
[by Paracetamol@11:54amGMT]

Comments

SnappyNipples said @ 5:11pm GMT on 26th Apr [Score:1 Informative]
Planetes is an anime series based on cleaning up orbital paths of space debris.
Space_1889 said @ 7:16pm GMT on 26th Apr [Score:1 Insightful]
And a darn good one at that. It's based on the manga of the same name by Makoto Yukimura, and is a surprisingly hard science fiction look at the problems associated with space debris. The main characters are essentially space garbage collectors, cleaning stuff up from orbit to prevent the possibility of the Kessler Syndrome. While that sounds sort of boring, it is actually very interesting with plot points that touch on a wide variety of issues associated with space colonization. Well worth a read and/or a watch.
zarathustra said @ 5:20am GMT on 27th Apr
Like Quark?
Space_1889 said @ 6:06pm GMT on 10th May [Score:1 Informative]
I have never seen the show, but after reading the Wikipedia page, it looks like the humorous part about garbage collection in space is similar. However, Planetes actually has a serious underlying arc that is covered over multiple episodes. I'd say it's a mix of both humor and drama, while Quark looks like pure comedy/parody.
zarathustra said @ 1:55am GMT on 11th May
I"ll have to check it out. Thanks.
damnit said @ 2:04pm GMT on 26th Apr
That's the plot for Defiance. After aliens that were in orbit to Earth (having chosen the planet as their destination not knowing it already had sentient life, after a long journey to find a new home), several of the orbiting ships were destroyed, blanketing the atmosphere with debris. Surviving ships landed on Earth. Some of their terraforming tech that rained on Earth also affected the Earth, changing it.
the circus said @ 8:17pm GMT on 26th Apr
I remember this being one of the reasons why you couldn't go into space in the tabletop RPG Rifts. Could releasing a cloud of common gas into orbit slow particles enough to de-orbit? I imagine even an extremely thin layer of CO2 or something would slowly impede things in orbit.
mechanical contrivance said @ 8:48pm GMT on 26th Apr [Score:1 Good]
Everything will deorbit eventually, but some things will take a long time.
ethanos said[1] @ 7:53pm GMT on 2nd May
There are plans available to have your ashes launched into orbit where you can observe humankind from above. But as you say, you will eventually de-orbit and reenter the atmosphere as tiny little fire things. Or, you will just be more space junk, just waiting to puncture the International Space Station or GPS.
gendo666 said @ 10:22pm GMT on 26th Apr
I can see cleanup crews like in Planetes but they will probably be drones with high intensity lasers to "nudge" smaller shit to rain down.
They would of course hopefully have limits on the size of the crap they do this with as well as an operator call on stuff that was larger.
- just an idea.
5th Earth said @ 2:06am GMT on 27th Apr [Score:1 Good]
Yeah, Planetes was brilliant, but the reality of space cleanup is that you could never do it economically with human spacewalks. Kessler syndrome is really about the proliferation of small debris, not big stuff you can reach out and grab.
gendo666 said @ 4:06am GMT on 28th Apr
That's why I was pitching semi autonomous drones. - and hope they are programmed well enough and hardy so that they don't become more junk.

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