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Comment by bayindirh | Hacker News Reader

> Don't expect this good behaviour to continue.

I don't agree. Kessler syndrome is another M.A.D. scenario. Nobody would want it to poison the well for everyone incl. themselves.

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There are basically countless examples in human history of disparate self-interested parties overusing a shared resource and failing to regulate themselves until that resource becomes unusable for everyone involved, from the most micro scale office fridge scenario through to global scale like ocean overfishing and carbon emissions. I don’t see how polluting orbital space is much different than polluting our water, soil, and air.

I don’t think it really is MAD; for example in a war (I mention this because the comment a couple up talks about anti-satellite weapons) where one side has a major satellite advantage, the other side would probably be tempted to kick off Kessler syndrome. It is a long term problem but the potentially pro-Kessler side doesn’t care much unless they win, and it doesn’t actually cause them major destruction until they want to go start exploring space again (which would probably be put on pause until the war is over).

And, it would be really bad. But to some extent, can you blame them? If they are getting whacked every day by GPS guided bombs or drones, or they are being outsmarted by satellite-gathered intelligence, why should they take it? If we’ve put parts of our weapons in space, we’re the ones weaponizing it, right?

By that same reasoning everyone should be doing their best to avoid runaway climate change, yet here we are. The tragedy of the commons is tragic.

Things are more civilized in space, maybe in part because of the relatively small number of big players. But at the same time there are tentative signs that we might be in the early stages of Kessler syndrome. It's hard to tell, and by the time we can tell with certainty it might be hard to still act in time

I think the difference is "perceived cost of the catastrophe". Many parties believe or choose to believe that all the damage done can be reversed, or it can't be that bad (which is very wrong, BTW) or, I'll die anyway, who cares.

For space, this perceived cost might be higher so, the limited number of parties might be more cautious.

Indeed I'm aware of The Tragedy of Commons, but from my view, space is a bit more nuanced.

Wish we were much more diligent about our planet though. We, humans, pillage it like all resources are infinite. Sad.

Hi my name is SpaceY and I get paid to launch other companies payloads. What happens once they're deployed in orbit is the customer's responsibility, we specialize only in launching.

Companies don't work for the public good, or even their own good, most of the time. Strange that you'd expect that to change.

> Strange that you'd expect that to change.

I don't expect companies to change. I expect government to regulate and oversee...

What's stranger is, people calling for deregulation of everything despite knowing how it's gonna end up.

The fact that the well is constantly being poisoned would belie that fact.

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