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Comment by hwbehrens | Hacker News Reader

Obviously the best way to avoid Kessler syndrome is to prevent it from occurring in the first place, but given the widespread short-termism everywhere these days, that seems naïve.

Are laser brooms the current state of the art when it comes to deorbiting? From this article [0], it appears to be quite slow but at least highly parallel, "cleaning" an object in 3-4 years but all addressable objects in ~5 years. It's still unclear to me if the principles required for them to function effectively are currently available, or if more development is required first.

Another concern is that large installations may be viewed with suspicion, given their potential applications as anti-satellite weapons, especially against surveillance satellites whose sensors (I assume) would be more sensitive to high-intensity illumination. Any ideas on how these concerns might be mitigated?

[0]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.3835

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This is very pessimistic - basically every space-faring nation now has pretty strict licensing requirements for new spacecraft, a portion of which is a plan to deorbit / move to a 'junkyard orbit.' In the US, this is actually handled by the FCC, because a satellite you can't talk to might as well be debris. [0]

In general, the economics of debris removal are also really unclear, because the actual risk of collisions is still pretty slim and the potential legal risk of touching another nation's spacecraft are high. Many objects are also too small to be tracked. The community is largely shifting towards debris avoidance, rather than mitigation - i.e., tracking and maintaining custody of debris, and maneuvering out of the way when necessary. This is pretty straightforward, since we already do a lot of space object tracking and maneuvering anyways. A variety of commercial companies have already moved into this space, including giants like AGI [1].

[0] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-354773A1.pdf [1] https://www.agi.com/missions/space-situational-awareness

This is how hazardous waste is handled in the US. The producer is ultimate responsible, and accountable, for the waste.

Seems like enforcement is lacking, or why else there is this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites ?

Most of those sites predate modern environmental law.

Most hazardous waste isn’t related to superfund-type sites.

Fast food places produce grease. Gas stations have lots of small to medium size spills. Agriculture produces toxic runoff. Etc.

Compliance can definitely suck, especially when it comes to small, non-obvious producers - like a mom and pop diner.

I don’t know if there are “mom and pop” satellite launchers.

I suspect satellite management is an easier industry to regulate.

Look at how many of those sites are formal military bases. If the gov’t won’t hold themselves accountable, why would you expect them to hold a private company responsible?

Considering the number of abandoned tailings ponds etc, this seems pretty laughable in reality

And who is going to make the Space Force clean up our orbitals after a battle or war?

The idea of combat in orbit is insanity, the Space Force will just ground itself if war ever breaks out in orbit at any scale. It's like building a navy that would be unable to leave port if you were to ever actually use it. It's like... well, nuclear weapons, except perhaps less likely to result in human extinction.

> And who is going to make the Space Force clean up our orbitals after a battle or war?

as if the rest of the military think that long for any conflict.

From past performance, they will probably install a terrorist organization and/or dictator in orbit.

The alien warlord Xenu!

The Space Force's first doctrinal cornerstone is literally "Preserve freedom of action" and one of their core competencies is space mobility and logistics.

It seems pretty obvious that they've identified the strategic importance of being able to reliably launch and move in space. Now does this mean picking up all the debris after all the Starlink satellites are hacked and turned into missiles by adversaries? Probably not. It's more likely to manifest as either exceptional detection capabilities (and there is an entire section to this in the Space Force), or some sort of shielding technology that brings the risk level to an acceptable tolerance.

In its current state it probably means a lot of people thinking about ways of dealing with Kessler syndrome in a variety of ways so that if it ever happens, there is a plan ready to go.

Exceptional detection is not enough against Kessler syndrome. Shielding is a hope, but I wouldn't bank on it.

I would more than bank on it.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29232/navys-advanced-a...

That would be useless against non-conductive debris, which is most of it. The only protections are kinetic.

Ironically, a navy that doesn't leaves port is a naval strategy of the 1690s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_in_being

Even later - it was the main German naval strategy of WWI.

Not sure if you're being humorous or not but that's because they lost immediately in the opening battle.

They kept their fleet in port for most of the war; Jutland was halfway through the war, when the Germans lost patience, ended indecisively, and led the Germans to return to a fleet-in-being policy.

And the Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine in nuclear warfare can be seen as nothing but a sequential development of this naval strategy. I was surprised when I first learned it.

In chess, "The threat is stronger than the execution"-Aron Nimzowitsch

> the Space Force will just ground itself

They’d have to have something to ground first. The so called Space Force is a navy without so much as a dinghy.

What do you mean? They're already operating dozens of birds, and even more if you count their manpower that's on loan to places like the NRO

Elon Musk, who became a billionaire by launching a website that merged with a website that provided payment services to a website that provides auction services to vendors who sell things like second hand mobile phones: Has rockets and independent space launch capability. Has ability to perform manned missions.

US Space Force, government agency that's supposed to "Conduct space operations" and "Preserve freedom of action": No rockets, no capability to perform manned missions.

I know who I'd want on my team in a Moonraker-style space laser battle.

I don't think the space force's focus is really on winning Moonraker-style space laser battles

If they ground themselves they also ground any enemies. Job accomplished I would say, no more threats from space.

The purpose of Space Force is not to deploy a fleet of manned spacecraft, it is to initiate and manage the prescision deorbit manuevers of titanium rods into aircraft carriers and other ground assets. Why do you think the latest X37B launch was so massive? Edit: sarcasm

We've already had a startup take the Uber/Lyft/Airbnb approach of ignoring regulations and just launching anyways after the FCC denied their application. The punishment a slap on the wrist (6 figure fine, drop in the bucket and probably actually cheaper than doing things the right way)

If we held satellite operators liable for damages from collisions, they may be incentivized to acquire insurance against collision events. And underwriters would incentivize satellite operators to reduce that risk by giving lower premiums to operators that use collision avoidance systems like drag sails and/or propulsion.

"UL standards for satellites" sounds like a pretty presumable scenario. Extrapolating how the UL standards are currently used in the industry, private space corporations may even refuse to launch the satellite, provide or accept services if it's not certified.

Similar to safety with fission energy, this is not something where you want to apply financial incentives, because you don't want companies to take that risk ever. People may say: "If it goes wrong, I guess my company goes bankrupt. But it's unlikely enough that'd I'd take that risk." - like they're gambling at a stock exchange or something.

If anything ever goes wrong and something like the Kessler syndrome occurs, humanity will be so monumentally screwed you'll have trouble putting a dollar amount on the amount of damage done. No amount of insurance is going to make it right. It will be a large setback for humanity as a whole.

What you want to do is: Have companies follow the precautions you dictate and ensure compliance before they're allowed to launch.

I think there needs to be rules about orbital distance. Low earth orbit satellites like Starlink aren't risky because their orbit decays rapidly without constant boosts. Its the perfect failsafe.

The only reason to use higher orbits is to save money on satellites and complex communication systems. Orbits that allow space junk to hang around for centuries should be banned.

This is simply not true. Higher orbits are useful for longer line-of-sight links, greater earth observation area, etc.

Not an expert, and have barely studied anything related.

That being said, this:

> I think there needs to be rules about orbital distance. Low earth orbit satellites like Starlink aren't risky because their orbit decays rapidly without constant boosts. Its the perfect failsafe.

doesn't necessarily sound like a bad idea. Obviously you are correct about the second part however.

Useful but not necessary. Anything pointing at the Earth, nearly all satellites, work better closer. The issues of line of sight and coverage are all about money, and the cost of small satellite launch is dropping rapidly.

There are some satellites like telescopes that need to be far from the earth. But the vast majority could be banned from orbits beyond a distance where they won't decay in a reasonable amount of time, with the only downside being cost

is there a good metric for distance between two objects in different orbits? you can say something like "must not come within x km of each other for the next n years" but extending that to all orbiting object pairs seems complex. i may be overthinking this, though?

You're not. Most orbits at about the same altitude will intersect.

What kind of rule?

anything with an orbit calculated to take more than a decade to decay without station keeping is banned. These calculations are routine so the requirement is only a burden for mission cost (needing more satellites for coverage). Exceptions for scientific missions and satellites used for extra-earth communications

How about for every new sat we launch, a few micro sats (with extra fuel) go up with it, and each of these stays in a parking orbit ready to be commanded to attach to and knock down large debris or other decommissioned sats in range? If we did this for awhile, coverage could extend to most common orbits.

Edit: removed a redundant statement.

Right now the economics for this don't add up. The risk of collision is quite low compared to launching "extra" satellites with the sole purpose of finding and tracking another satellite. It is also much more difficult to target an arbitrary piece of debris. If the incoming debris is in a similar orbit (both altitude and inclination) then it requires less fuel to be able track and find it. If the incoming debris/satellite is in a different orbital plane it requires a huge amount of fuel in order to change orbital inclination [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_inclination_change

If you want to carry enough fuel for significant orbital changes plus some sort of docking manipulator then you need a macro satellite, not micro.

Ground based lasers are a serious concern for satellites

https://spacenews.com/op-ed-u-s-satellites-increasingly-vuln...

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