Hacker News Reader

I'm just worried the British will start orbiting satellites in the opposite direction as the rest of the world, for the same reason they drive on the left side of the road. ;)

View on HN

Somewhat related to that, but Israel is launching satellites in the opposite direction than the rest of the world when they launch from their shores, this is so the launch is done over the Mediterranean sea and not their neighbors.

Even more tangential - one of the “disaster” scenarios is a satellite collision - either East/West vs West/East or East/West vs North/South. The debris then would act as shrapnel taking out more and more satellites.

There is an assumption that such a loss would be a prelude to a major attack - but cock up is always more likely.

There's already a broad range of inclinations spanning from equatorial to polar (and slightly beyond polar (slightly "backwards"), for sun-synchronous orbits)—they already have enormous relative velocities, at up to 90-degree relative angles. Satellites going completely "backwards" wouldn't meaningfully make things worse.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com