I certainly have thought that a good dose of Kessler Syndrome would put the tech bros and unregulated capitalism in their place, but apparently KS could mean no more space flights...for hundreds of years. Prof, is there more, and worse?

"Kessler Syndrome is extremely bad for everybody, don't hope for it (though on my grumpier days I can definitely understand that perspective)"

Future generations are not going to respect their ancestors, and I don't blame 'em

#kesslersyndrome

The internet is somewhat resilient, yes. However, its resilience is highly overestimated by folks who don't work on carrier networks. The whole thing is held together with very expensive ducktape and bailing wire and constant efforts by thousands of people. Fiber breaks are a constant problem. The only intact fiber at the Ukrainian front is attached to FPV drones.

I'm very anxious to know whether high velocity collisions in low earth orbit could have enough energy to eject material further out to medium and high orbit. Put simply, does a tech bro Kesslerpocalyse take-out BeiDou, Galileo, GLONASS, and GPS, as well?

I'm assuming it would, in effect, eventually, due to attrition, since I imagine it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to launch any more MEO, GEO, or HEO satellites through the LEO debris layer.* I suppose it's also fairly likely that the debris will scatter RF energy to the point where satellite astronavigation and time synchronization fails, anyway.

*We can savor the irony of Elon trapped on Earth by his own space junk, at least.

(I don’t think having the tonsils out helped one bit. But maybe it did. It is hard to know.)

The scab I had on my knee that my parents had to debride lest I die from sepsis was beautiful in its way. Nevertheless, when they told me I would die if they did not let me rub it off of me, I let them rub it off of me. And, as always, I took my penicillin. Being a kid in the 1960s who got his tonsils out in the 1960s, when they didn’t take out tonsils regularly anymore, I took a lot of penicillin.

Tell that to the people who say that.

I hate the idea. I still think it'll fail in many other ways. But the engineering has largely been proven already.

Not according to the numbers in the linked article. 0.5% chance of collision per launch is not great, especially if the mission isn't unmanned, but with odds like that you can still put GPS satellites into orbit pretty reliably.

@rootwyrm

How could a society have aneutronic fusion and interstellar travel, yet be unable to armor or shield their ships enough to shrug off impact by orbital debris?

I mean, even if you don't have Star Trek deflector shields, but you do have a rocket powered by a fusion reactor, then you should be able to at least slap some pretty thick slabs of armor on your ship and still fly.

And not even weird exotic armor. Orbital debris hits with the force of a grenade, not a nuke.

@sundogplanets

Kessler syndrome in low Earth orbit won't entirely prevent the deployment of replacement GPS satellites or otherwise launching rockets into outer space.

Probably. One hopes.

Can Space Debris Block Access to Outer Space?

Analysis of Kessler syndrome risks and whether orbital debris could prevent launches beyond Earth. Examines accidental cascades, deliberate dispersal threats, and mitigation strategies.

Forethought (www.forethought.org)

@sundogplanets

Putting an AI data center in orbit is impossible. The laws of man may be malleable, but the laws of thermodynamics are not.

There is a reason I included the detail that a society with *interstellar travel* and *aneutronic fusion* completely lost access to an entire planet for nearly a CENTURY when two large freighters collided in mid orbit at speed. And that was not NEARLY as bad as the mess we are in.