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Comment by travisgriggs | Hacker News Reader

The article cites a number of western assets that do things like model and study this problem. The only credit India and Russia get is for contributing to the problem by shattering things in space. There is no mention of China at all.

So I’m left with a question. Is the west just doing more in this regard while non western states are behaving recklessly/belligerently OR do those nations also sponsor efforts, but don’t get mentions because the article audience is western?

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Does seem biased to not mention the prior US testing, which destroyed satellite Solwind P78-1 in 1985, leaving debris in orbit for 2 decades. (also suggestive of secret testing which may have left more)

There's also an earlier Soviet program described in the article, with many space impacts, tho debris extent isn't noted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon#United_S...

Also, the US Operation Burnt Frost which shot down a non-functioning NRO satellite in 2008. Luckily this one was in a low orbit and everything decayed within a couple years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Burnt_Frost

I don't know the factual answer to your question, but just wanted to point out a potential motivation between such a discrepancy if it is real: western states have already achieved much of the benefit from space tech, and are ahead, giving the luxury of thinking about such things. Other states have not, so likely don't want to invest in research that would prevent them reaping the benefit others already got.

Something like how it's developing nations that didn't get benefits from early industrialization (or indeed were exploited as a result of it) sometimes push back against climate policies which they feel are shutting them out of all the benefits that the historical polluters have gained.

Certainly there is some bias, the other comments here have addressed some of the things we skim over. I don't know enough to speak to other countries specifically, but the US does now have the "de-orbited within five years" rule enforced by the FCC for any newly launched satellites. I believe Europe is also following this now as well, but I believe the ITU rules are less strict and still follow the older rule for de-orbit within 25 years.

India's ASAT test was a very well executed one if I recall: they launched a satellite dedicated to the task, and put it in an orbit where it would re-enter anyway and then hit it with the interceptor. As a result the debris was headed back to Earth and I believe was targeted to a known region as well.

Basically a class act all round.

Yep, it was a dedicated satellite and it was an altitude of 283 km when they did the ASAT test. Everything from the test decayed within about 3 years [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Shakti#Space_debris

Despite their intention of debris lasting a minimal amount of time ("weeks") some of the generated debris lasted for several years. While this was much better than the particularly reckless Russian destruction of K1408, orbital collisions are chaotic and energetic events, and there's no particular way to do it safely.

> Is the west just doing more in this regard while non western states are behaving recklessly/belligerently OR do those nations also sponsor efforts, but don’t get mentions because the article audience is western?

IMO, the west is a better steward recently, but has done some pretty questionable things in the past. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford

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