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Comment by eggsnbacon1 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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

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