Don't worry, Sam, SpaceX won't ACTUALLY launch 7,000 satellites!

[john_loader@ohai.social]

@sundogplanets Anti alien minefield!

[michkov@mas.to]

@sundogplanets On a serious note, that may be a result of living under light pollution for your whole live. With so many people living in cities, they don't even know what they lose to the mega constellations.

[sundogplanets@mastodon.social]

@hipsterelectron I'm not quite sure what you're asking. But if we have full Kessler Syndrome, it will be hard if not impossible to keep satellite from getting destroyed by debris and NOBODY will be doing surveillance from space.

[hipsterelectron@circumstances.run]

@sundogplanets thanks!

[lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza]

@sundogplanets, “Come on, people! I want to do the Kessler Run in less than twelve seconds!”

[chemoelectric@masto.ai]

@sundogplanets @Michkov

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.

[chemoelectric@masto.ai]

@sundogplanets @Michkov

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

[0x0ddc0ffee@infosec.exchange]

@sundogplanets Professor Lawler, would you please tell me if you aware of anyone attempting to model how Kessler Syndrome will play-out, with all that's up there now, and planned in the short term?

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.

[dymaxion@infosec.exchange]

@wallabra
@macronencer While I also don't think it justifies Starlink, no, there is currently no replacement for Starlink in the Ukrainian context. At the trench lines, there is no infrastructure of any kind left. It's all rubble. Also, getting realtime video uplink from a drone in the middle of the black sea or in the middle of Moscow is not possible for them by any non-satellite means. In theory the front line connections could be partially replaced by much much more heavily deployed terrestrial data radios, but they're by default easier to both jam and home in on with RF-seeking drones, simply due to the angle of intended emissions.

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.

[wallabra@bark.lgbt]

@dymaxion @macronencer I mean, all technology is held together by duct tape, yeah. Such is the nature of squeezing margin out of capital. That doesn't mean deploying a hecto-mesh of satellites is the approach to go with for resilient remote miltary operations. I mean, think about it this way: did Iran need Starlink to strike Dubai with drones?

[elasticsoul@mastodon.social]

@sundogplanets

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

[dymaxion@infosec.exchange]

@wallabra
@macronencer Iran is mostly shooting at stuff that doesn't move and doing without manual terminal-phase guidance. Again, I'm not saying that it's justified. That said, making the argument to governments that capability is not worth the risk and impact on a way that will be heard requires acknowledging the use cases where there is no direct replacement and the infrastructural dependencies that attempts to replace it imply. The EU and China are both working toward their own constellations, multiplying the problem, because having a sovereign LEO data capability is seen as a critical defense capability.

[raktheundead@vmst.io]

@Tofu_Golem @sundogplanets: They're also insanely stupid as far as maintenance goes.