Look at all the comments that say « oh we humans kill planet bad bad bad ». They react to a graphic that intends to make them think so.
Imagine the graphic has represented the fact that basically, there are 100 m3 of debris in space, (130 millions of parts or less than 1mm). Which is the equivalent of a ball of 6m diameter in debris in space.
The graphic might say "after 65 years of space exploration, the total of space debris is equivalent to a ball of 5.7m of diameter. That's about the equivalent of 1,3 m3 of debris per year. Isn't that absolutely unbelievably clean ?"
But you would not get the nice « oh we gonna die because human bad bad bad » comments.
That’s why they decide to put this bullshit graphic.
The problem is a screw-sized fragment has a huge amount of kinetic energy, as orbital velocity in LEO is 8 km/s. Here's a good article about the orbital debris problem.
ESA and NASA use similar analytical approaches, ESA with its Debris Environment Long-Term Analysis software and NASA with its LEO-to-GEO Environment Debris software. Soares says ESA’s calculations suggest that orbital debris will continue to grow over the next two centuries even if all rocket launches stopped today.
“It would more than double the number of debris in orbit without us sending anything else up there,” he says.
...
Matney puts it like this: Kessler Syndrome “won’t cause orbital altitudes to be unusable. It’s more like a gradual degradation that’s going to cost everybody more money.”
What it says is list several scenarios that MIGHT happen in the future, and if they happen, it MIGHT start some type of Kessler effect, and the Kessler effect is something where spacecrafts MIGHT be impacted.
The article says « Kessler Syndrome “won’t cause orbital altitudes to be unusable. It’s more like a gradual degradation that’s going to cost everybody more money ».
Do you think the image in the post reflects that situation ? Or rather that « oh we’re going to die because of the big mean Man » ?
The takeaway is that if LEO isn't managed better there will be major impacts on our ability to operate satellites, which play a major role in the economy. There is a fair degree of uncertainty, it's a difficult problem to model accurately because the amount of debris generated in a collision could vary enourmously. The impact is unlikely to be catastrophic (unless we ignore the problem) but has the potential to render some obital regions unusable.
Interestingly, the very large satellite constellations currently being launched aren't a major risk. They are at a relatively low altitude where their orbits will decay over a few years, due to atmospheric drag. Whereas debris produced at higher levels can persist for decades or centuries.
After reading the article a second time, which ends with the following conclusion:
« No matter which view of the Kessler Syndrome one adheres to, the risk it describes might not be a fait accompli. “This is a problem that we have the capability and, hopefully, the willpower to solve,” says Matney »,
My take away is that it is more a constraint that a problem. A very interesting constraint for the extremely few lucky people who work in the space conquest domain. But it remains a very, almost infinitely small issue for humanity. In no way is the amplitude of this problem worth showing the image of a planet burning, or surrounded by millions of tiny dots that - to scale - would each be about 30km wide.
Even for the infinitesimally small number of humans who are space scientists, my understanding is that as of today, the scientific community is not sure it is yet a problem (still from the article) for their activities.
So yes, it is definitely something that must be considered by space scientists. But I don’t see it as a problem for other people. I see it as constraint for scientists and the satellite industry.
That being said, it is my position now but I am open to be receive further arguments, as I know nothing except what the article said.
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u/screw-self-pity 5d ago edited 5d ago
Look at all the comments that say « oh we humans kill planet bad bad bad ». They react to a graphic that intends to make them think so.
Imagine the graphic has represented the fact that basically, there are 100 m3 of debris in space, (130 millions of parts or less than 1mm). Which is the equivalent of a ball of 6m diameter in debris in space.
The graphic might say "after 65 years of space exploration, the total of space debris is equivalent to a ball of 5.7m of diameter. That's about the equivalent of 1,3 m3 of debris per year. Isn't that absolutely unbelievably clean ?"
But you would not get the nice « oh we gonna die because human bad bad bad » comments.
That’s why they decide to put this bullshit graphic.