How 100,000 Satellites Will Change Earth Forever by 2040
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- Published on Jun 10, 2021
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Imagine how 100,000 Toyota corolla's would change earth...
There are 129,000 Toyota Corolla's in the UK alone.
@Isa oof
@DaanDanx even better :)
Normie
I already live in Chicago - I know what rush hour traffic looks like, and it's a clusterfuck.
I would call out a little error (although I don't know if I would call it even that). You mention that there is very little regulation, specifically regarding corporate actions, with the example of space debris. While this is kinda true, most companies and nations do actually comply with a unspoken agreement, mostly to deorbit satellites, safe batteries and fuel tanks, or move satellites out of the way if possible. This was relatively rare early on, but iirc, is currently done for 99%-ish satellites. So there are few laws, however, some agreements (if informal) do exist for companies.
I'm currently launching a satellite with NASA/SpaceX and the only rule we have is don't hit the international space station. That's it. If our satellite doesn't work at all, basically a piece of metal in space, we have to have a failsafe for it not to hit the ISS. Other than that, no other rules, restrictions, laws, or requirements. Just gotta get a few government approvals and your good.
@Alan Ivar
The entire thread is there for objective review. What is the point of denying it? Let the reader decide.
@Digital Nomad thats exactly the opposite of what went down
@Alan Ivar I challenged your assertions, you called me stupid.
@Digital Nomad i engaged, you acted unengageable, i told you to at minimum make engageable arguments, you found it impossible. its done
For a channel I love for their level of research, this was an incredibly poorly researched subject. I used to work on this specific subject for the US army. Space around earth is MASSIVE. remember, only a tiny fraction of earths surface contains 8.6 billion people. Earth orbit is hundreds of times larger than earths surface due to the addition of range and a 3rd plain. Additionally, all satellites that share the same orbit are going exactly the same speed as required by orbital physics. That means each satellite sharing the same orbit are effectively stationary to each other due to the laws or relativity. The run a similar risk of your house running into your neighbors. Despite the fact the world spins at ~1000 mph your house and your neighbors are going the same speed, making them stationary objects. The one thing that is an issue is astronomy. However, it’s likely astronomers will be using satellites soon too. They always would have of it wasn’t for the cost, as it’s far superior. As you mentioned costs are dramatically reducing. However you failed to mention that this is specific to visual astronomy. Which is one of the least used forms of astronomy already. Another point you failed on. Low earth orbit does not take over 100 years to naturally decay. LOE has atmospheric resistance and only takes a few years. Which is why loe satellites all either have a short lifespan or have boosters to push them back into a higher orbit. The ISS is boosted almost every month.
Hey, great insight into the topic! I was already assuming astronomers would be using satletie telescopes because it would make so much more sense. Makes sense now that the costs or launch have been reduced greatly they're finally about to make the switch.
The 2020's will become the most important decade in space travel... obviously nobody wants to stay on this planet after the first 1.5 years of this decade
Which is why I invested in RKLB.
Well I’m not going live in mars
2020 is popular tbh lol, *corona*
I propose we invest in tractor beams to reclaim and recycle these satellites.
@Minecraft guy mmm
M
Mmm
mmmmmmm
Commander Riker... Make it so!
This has been the greatest trade deal, in the history of trade deals. maybe ever
Deathbeam
Great video, as always. Although, instead of simply making a law, I feel like it would be better to incentivize companies and governments to clean up after themselves. Like making them foot the bill if their derelict satellites have to be recovered and disposed of by someone else. They're motivated by money, so we could try and find a way to make it more expensive to leave stuff up there
That's what laws are for. They incentive people to do the thing or pay a fine. There are no incentives good enough to get someone to do what you want them to do. You have to threaten humans with punishment in order for anything to get done.
I imagine that in the distant future, if there are still little to no enforced laws on retrieving and recycling satellites, the future upper atmosphere would look like the blanket of space clutter that covered the dead world of Wall-E when he first left Earth.
Unlikely, there's active benefits to bringing Junk ones Back down, or atleast Out of the way, namely Not losing new ones or having Them jeopardized by space junk
@Shauma So you have a Crystal Ball, then?
That's what'll happen.
Very nice video! I work in the USSF in the organization that operates the GPS satellites. A quick note, not all satellites (commercial/military) operate in LEO, many operate in the MEO and HEO orbits as well. However, that does not take away how congested LEO is getting. Space debris is an honest concern, a piece of debris as small as 0.1% of a satellites mass can cause that satellite to get destroyed...causing more space debris. The chance of a satellite getting hit by a meteor is around 1 in 1 million compared to a piece of man made debris which is 1 in 50 thousand.
One of my favorite things to do sometimes is keep an eye on the international space station orbit tracker and see when it's coming over me. Hoping it'll be somewhere in between dusk and dawn (early morning is the easiest time to see it) and see the white dot quickly move across the sky at an incredible speed. Sometimes I give the astronauts a wave as they pass. Idk always liked space stuff I cried when I heard Cassini was going to crash into saturn.
This is why I think we should have some kind of gravitational satellite or net or magnetic satellite, it could function as a space garbage truck and bring the space junk back down to the atmosphere, where there it could burn up or land somewhere in the desert to be picked up and possibly melted down and reused . It could be able to solve this problem
"40 years ago, when the first Space Shuttle launched" *shows footage of Saturn V*
Also these mega constellations don’t post a threat to Kessler syndrome because they de orbit in a few years no matter what. The benefit is they are super low and therefore super low latency
@Herman Von Petri 😂😂😂could have shown Rocketlabs Electron or SpaceX Falcon 9 but nope😂
Yes, was thinking the same thing. Came down here to see if any other space nerd noticed it.
Hah
it seems foolish to get so excited about this especially with the glaringly obvious space observation issues if they were to be this numerous. by 2040 i would hope that it's just cheaper/better to transmit from the ground to locations, or perhaps technology for the satelites themselves could be improved to where they do not need to be this close or dense.
@Kaboom Winn oh please that is like the, with nuclear fusion there will be clean energy thing. Yes it will be, but it is still future technology, just like a lunar observatory is something that might happen in the future. The satellites in space are a thing that not just likey happens, it happens and is underway, there are gonna be thousands of satellites in space in a few years. but the other stuff like moon landings and observatories and whatever is still only a concept and has yet to happen. we have to act now and put regulations in place, making it mandatory for every satellite operator to remove the satellites after their service time is up and it has to be signed and enforced by every nation.
I hear they planing to put the space observation on the moon for clearing scene. Then on earth with Weather and space satellite interfering the Scientific research.
Very well rounded video. Covered the upsides, like better communication, and downsides, like astronomy and doomsday. Seen similar videos but don’t usually cover everything. Nice job!
Doesn't this mean space travels gonna be harder since we'll have more satellites to avoid?
Scientists : *working very hard to launch satelites into space*
RealLifeLore : *SPACE GARBAGE*
They don’t do anything, they’re time is up. You call dead people corpses right, despite the fact that they had to be taken care of and taught and lived a long and happy life, but you call them a corpse because they serve no purpose now.
I mean you cant argue with that
Humanity isn't great at dealing with its trash.
That's what its called
well i mean it's technically true
Once again another beautifully explained and animated video. Thank you for keeping us informed!
Are solar flares a concern? I imagine their working on this but dependency on satellites seems scary
I feel like a log chart was an odd choice for that launch costs to low earth orbit slide. A normal linear chart would better show the decrease over time.
"... the entire astronomy profession will be negatively affected, potentially forever."
This is a teething issue. The Hubble and similar space telescopes revolutionized astronomy. Plummeting launch costs and increased payloads will only negatively affect astronomy in the very near term, and afterwards effects will be positive.
For anyone wondering why satellite have only recently been put into Low Earth Orbit, the closer a satellite is to the surface of the earth, the less area it can cover. Many companies used to trade the advantage of speed for a satellite that can cover more area. Now that satellites are cheaper, you can have many satellites at a low altitude instead of one at a higher altitude, meaning less latency.
Watching 8:30 in HD using Starlink internet. It's a good reminder that HD wasn't possible last year when we used a single crappy Xplornet geostationary satellite for internet. The difference in latency and upload bandwidth is huge.
How 100,000 satellites will change earth in 2040: the Earth will have 100,000 more satellites
please, adults are talking.
@Shauma ah yes this is all I could’ve asked for
@Shauma progress indeed
Yeah, you'll be able to stream porn hub in the Himalayan mountains, or what's left of the Amazon rain forest, or remotest Siberia -- progress?
@Morokhy so am I of you
My question is, “How close are we - in terms of time and number and total volume of satellites - to having Kessler-like phenomena?” Will we be in danger of widespread internet and other outages by 2040? Much later?
Space has almost nothing to do with internet so no.
There were a lot of errors in this one. The numbers you used for total satellites in orbit Starlink alone currently has >1440.
Also Starlink are super low orbit and de orbit themselves within 5-10 years
@Sai Kumar His grammar is fine but nice try
We need to start removing old satellites.
ESA, Nasa and others are working on this and testing some solutions.
No shit Sherlock
We do, sometimes
SpaceX will
@Kaboom Winn Omg you're a genius. Legal space metal scrapers, that's gonna be the future of pirates
Just finished Space Camp and I learned all about this stuff, good to see you doing stuff with space
This has been on my mind for years. Especially with starlink and the like. I believe it's super important that internet is accessible to all, but I don't think private organizations launching them was the way to go. It should have been a company like Hurricane Electric who'd sell wholesale access to SISPs like starlink. This would've allowed for competition, without the need for each SISP to contribute to space pollution. It'd also lower the barrier to entering that market.
The dumbest thing about it is that you can achieve global internet coverage with like three satellites... At worst tens of them not tens of thousands.
Could it be that most of the cost reduction is simply because we used to launch humans into space (which require life support systems), but now we mostly just launch unmanned rockets?
Starlink satellites have an orbit-span of about 5 years, according to Elon Musk. They are relatively close to the atmosphere, compared to other satellites, to make internet connection as fast as it is practically possible.
As an ameuter astronomer and astrophotographer this really worries me. It's already hard enough to observe and photograph the sky with the satellites we have now. Multiplying that by 50 is going to make imaging nebulas and galaxies impossible. Not to mention light pollution from down on the surface. It seems we're losing the night sky faster and faster every passing year.
"incredible cost reductions across the entire space industry"
Proceeds to show SLS launch, with an estimated cost of over 2 billion dollars, this is even more than saturn V s 1.25 billion
@Nick SLS + Orion program cost over $40 BILLION so far.
SpaceX developed Falcon Heavy (biggest rocket in the world) for $0.5 billion, and Dragon 2 human-rated spacecraft for $2.5 billion
You need to account for inflation dude , 1,25 Billion dollars in 1960s is worth 10-17 billons in today’s money
Biggest rocket ever made to take the first humans into deep space doesn't come cheap!
They better bring unfunctional satellites back to earth that I can watch RealLifeLore
@Jonathan Palmquist and you are only talking about space x satellites here, but there are other companies that want to put garbage into space that can and will have higher orbits and take longer to decelerate. I will continue being critical until there are worldwide regulations that will fine the operator a big amount of money if they can or do not remove the satellites after their service time. And those regulations need to be signed by the USA as well, because i just know that the USA will not sign them, because muh freedom and such...
@Jonathan Palmquist good for us that satellites get cheaper and cheaper otherwise it couldnt happen
He made a pretty big error here. He said the many Low Earth Orbit satellites will stay up for centuries as they crowd the orbit. But the LEO satellites operated by companies like SpaceX come back down with just gravity after only a few years (
The problem with simulations of satellites in space is that it's never to scale. The space around the Earth is rather huge, even with the number of satellites expected in the future.
I wonder if you could re-purpose broken satelites to build new ones or even spacecrafts in orbit.
9:20 - Internet for the entire human species? Can't wait to see dank memes from all the uncontacted tribes around the world.
Cannibal tribes be like:
Pranking my wife by hiding my child in my stomach(Prank) (gone wrong)(gods called)
Lol
😂😂😂😂
I used to work with satellites and my tools had a live map of the movements of the ones I was using, I would usually never follow more than 13 satellites
I think all the satellites I used were owned by new York State
I know this is extremely hard but can a observatory be built on the moon for the astronomers
James Webb Telescope: "Soooo any room on the next rocket for me?"
~Just keep sitting in the waiting room, please. We'll be with you shortly.
James Webb Telescope: "But that's what they told me in 2007!"
Its finnaly here!
@James Garrard James Webb telescope has been delayed to 20021.
@Brian Diehl No, it still says November of this year.
@James Garrard I believe it has since been delayed again
So stupid to wait for an Ariane 5... go euth Falcon Heavy, Delta IV heavy.
Ariannespace always needs decades to prepare and 2 launches a year is kinda garbage..
11:20 the deorbit period for most of Starlinks lowest satellites is measured in months if i recall correctly and even their highest sats should deorbit within single digit years. I would be surprised if any other contemporary, competing constellation would be planned with dissimilar deorbit plans given how much of a hot topic space stewardship is these days. Claiming multi decade derbies for end of life sats in mega constellations without a source is a bit sketchy if you ask me. If anyone beefs over my lack of source I will try and dig one out, and I'm confident I could find something reasonably reputable. I am however not a multi million sub educational channel with paid researchers and writers...
5:38
This chars is simply funny. There is an energy minimum what is needed to reach LEO.
The fuel has energy content.
Even if you assume 100% efficiency which is a bad joke it means even 1000 USD/launch is a fantasy. The fuel cost alone is higher.
90%+ weight ration is fuel.
You simply can't fuel a rocket which needs hundreds of tons of fuel with so low price.
This is VERY basic math...
I'm pretty sure the issue with satellites affecting astronomy only applies to certain windows of time before and after sunset, as when a satellite is in the earth's shadow it can't reflect sunlight. So Astronomy from the ground will still go on, but the observation window will shrink.
unless they can use the satellites themselves to peer at far away stars.
I remember when I was deployed to Afghanistan in ‘09, you could look into the night sky and see 3 satellites at any time.
Don't know if humanity really moving towards its glorious days or something worse.....?🙄
@indescribable emptiness Yeah no, we are no where near that time.
@Bronco Belligerence yes but there will come a point to where all the economic viably available fossil fuels will run out.
@I there’s still fission and helium 3 otherwise I’ve lost all hope. Since the 50’s the earths population has nearly quadrupled, and it’s physically impossible to curve the current rate with human rights abuses.
glorious days? when the fuck was that? we're living in the best time in human history.
@The real Speedwagon there's no radiation, only when there's a overflow or fault.
With cheap and unlimited 4G/5G pretty much everywhere I go, I don't see this revolutionizing my life. But for the countries who lack behind in internet infrastructure (like US) this is huge.
The upper bound for a Toyota Corolla weight is 1465kg. Given the most recent cost of launching a kilogram payload into low earth orbit of $1891, it would cost about $2,770,315 to send a Toyota Corolla into low earth orbit
I think the RealLifeLore space programme can be financially viable in the near future
Then in geography, students will learn earth has more satellite than Jupiter!
@Nunna Beeznes wtf. You don't think every nation follows the same rule as yours do, do you? And no they aren't bible thumping nation. BASIC solar system in geography is to help them understand that in another context. Just like in geography, we will take about the earth, and this is the position of the earth in solar system... in this sense not anymore
@S B and which countries would those be? Must be the ultra right wing bible thumping countries that don't believe in science.
I didn't realize that space was part of Earth's geography. I figured that would be more of a sciene kinda topic.
@GearandaltheFirst well in elementary school syllabus of some countries, geography contains the solar system and satellites and all that (basic things just)
... ge... geography???
Essentially, we need the show Planetes to become real. Which is a cynically realistic future to come to pass.
Space waste management companies when?
We've already seen how much giant corporations or big businessmen care about future generations so I really don't get my hopes up that this situation will turn out differently.
A bit of a correction on the doomsday kessler syndrome scenario. PBS spacetime just recently did a video on this and they clarified that the idea of us not being able to do any space travel beyond earth is practically no-existent. So the real worst case scenario is not being able to use low earth orbit for satellites. Not denying all forms of space travel.
Very informative and interesting like always
Earlier in my science class, we were doing space and at one point we were talking about satellites and what could happen if too much get launched, how?
Knowing how humanity has handled earths pollution, I have no doubts that we will ground ourselves with space junk just the same.
I wonder whether starlink etc will actually provide that much of a benefit to people in places that actually can't really get decent internet. It seems to me that so far they are really just aimed at people in the USA who can't get decent internet because their government can't regulate the ISPs properly.
Legend has it. He is still getting sponsored to this day (Not from Toyota though)
@RealLifeLore ay yo
Normie
@RealLifeLore you about real life though I tell you that much
@RealLifeLore plz don’t say daddy
@AsylumSKP letss gaOo
Everyday brother eye comes closer to reality. Can't wait to be tracked even in the thickest of the wilderness.
India’s has launched more satellites 🛰 than Japan. ISRO has nearly launched 500 or more satellites both for us and foreign countries too.
There goes Astronomy. I got to watch Musk's endless stream of space junk run from horizon to horizon.
We honestly need a government/NASA agency that specializes in removing the most hazardous defunct satelites in orbit. Times change and we need to change with them.
I really like how the model of the earth didn't have icecaps in order to properly show what the future would look like. Nice attention to detail!
@Think ._.
That was probably not the reason.
Space debris are a problem but those satellites swooshing by looks amazing 😆
So the outstanding question is how do we get all of the junk satellites out of orbit to make room for more
Is it so hard to cause a satellite to self destruct (i.e. fall back to earth) once communication is lost? No... will we do it? No....
Random fun fact : If R136a1 (The most massive and most luminous star) is at the distance of 4 light years from us, it would be brighter than the full moon.
Fun fact: Fun fact is normie
@Dr. Rodrigo THE WATERS!!!!
@Jack BURDETT I believe it's called a joke. It is an equally ludicrous response to the zany idea that we could just park a star closer to us to be bathed in its amazing glow.
@Mycroft Selene if you are trolling, then great bait sir, you got this whole thread riled up.
Yeah, and i bet if that star was 4 light years away and it went supernova, it would kill us all. I'd say i'm greatful for things to be the way they are.
I am very excited about this. As long as our governments can get their act together and mandate and enforce deorbiting all satellites when don't with them.
With space travel becoming so cheap, I can see companies interested in collecting and recycling the used satellites around Earth. There are probably a lot of valuable materials in them.
@Deep Toot Thanks! Too you aswell
@Quinn Hunt hopefully! Merry Christmas friend!
@Deep Toot right, I agree, but maybe the technology will be more tangible for something like that, by the time space debris becomes a huge issue. Just a thought
Space travel isn't cheap, it's just the cost per launch Is cheap. Getting things back down as a whole without it decaying upon re-entry with today's technology would insanely expensve if not completely impossible.
Future me: far far away in forest, in a house, playing online games with peace
@Digital Nomad Cali has a lot of federal land within it..
@JJ Barajas Yea, part of it is state governments, Cali in particular, but basically right.
@Digital Nomad thanks, federal government, just doing a super job with that 👍
Yeah yeah all fun and games until you get stalked by skinwalkers
@Max Von Hapsburg I said that (in the US) there is no long-term trend for deforestation. And that we would have to change that to change over to a solar/wind power infrastructure. Nothing you have said contradicts this. The increase in forest fires is a result of a new policy of "hands off" forestry management. We've stopped clearing brush. Bad policy not warmer temperature.
I hope this satellites will give us infinite and the fastest wifi connection for everyone no restrictions
A good improvement would be painting the sattelites Black or use an light absorvant material. This significantly reduces light reflection from them and can reduce view pollution
Only if you want your satellite electronics fried! Temperature difference is a huge problem in space with extreme heat on the side exposed to the sun and extreme cold on the other side
would that many satellites cause a lot of pollution?
Zimbabwe: *It’s only one satellite, but hey atleast we own one*
@szecska5 at least the poor situation is improving
While their people are starving.
they have one satelite but cant figure out basic economics
@Mahaksh Shetty ok my bad.
@Zain Bhatti he was talking about inflation in Zimbabwe that's a joke
13:10 unfortunately right now most launches are made through space companies and their focus is not to preserve space for future generations or save astronomy, theyre just there to make money and peace out whenever theres a problem
Wouldn't that tiny satellites be problematic because a small piece of junk and other larger chunks can literally destroy it or disrupt its orbit competely?
knowing humanity and it's interest in solving problems on time, dooms day for Earth's space is pretty damn close and that makes me anxious
LOVE The Longer Videos! Thank You For All You Do!
All satellites should have a built-in propellant system that's sole purpose is to crash them back down or at least make orbital decay happen faster.
4:58 talks about incredible cost reductions while showing one of the most expensive rocket projects in history
Lol
Slight error at 6:29...I believe you meant to say that NASA hopes to get the price of payload delivered down to less than $100 per kilogram. Great video as always!
I got this in my recommended because something similar happens in Battlefield 2042's lore, which causes a Kessler effect. This causes 70% of the satellites to malfunction, and fall down to Earth.
Extremely excited for the future. I think the risk of kessler syndrome is low, while the reward from the satellites is high.
I have a few problems with this. For one, it feels like there's a lot more rambling than usual in order to extend the runtime for more ads.
For another, a lot of the problems of satellites becoming junk and the Kesler Syndrome theory are primarily centered around space debris rather than outright junk satellites. A wise man once said the sky is bigger than the ground, and it really is! There's technically plenty of room (for now), but the problem is tiny flakes of metal, chips of paint, and other objects flying at hundreds of thousands of mph impacting a satellite and causing damage. Focusing on damaged satellites kind of misses the real fact of the matter: we need to focus on cleaning up space rather than deorbiting satellites, which a lot of newer satellites are already outfitted to do at the end of their service.
And for a final point, I believe it's been pointed out that most spacecraft bound for spaces beyond Earth's orbit would be able to pass through a debris field relatively unscathed, especially when outfitted with armor and other protective measures employed in rocket building. Rocket hulls aren't made from aluminum foil and crossed fingers, after all. So a worst-case Kesler Syndrome would only be a detriment to satellites and less so to space travel.
Imagine believeing horizontally scaling satellites could handle the exponentially scaling internet
So you said there are 2800 working satellites, yet your breakdown by type added up to around 2000.
(I was hoping that the big breakthrough was something more than slightly better internet coverage.)
2020: Mom can we take a trip/vacation to France?
2050: Mom can we take a vacation to Mars?
This is the beginning of the golden age of space travel.
How can space, which is absolutely massive and empty, be messier than my room?!
do the world's wealthiest coporations and governments spend exorbitant amounts of resources to stuff your room?
I wonder if elon and bezos are releasing more satellites so that they have control of the sky. Minimizing who gets to leave the planet when humanity gets to that point.
As well as holding the planet hostage by threatening to smash all of the satellites together if they don't get their way.
I think it might be cheaper than that. Try the small sat launchers like Rocketlab. Much smaller, lighter and economical rockets.
Radical solution: UN legislation that satellites must include _end of life_ features to remove it from Earth Orbit … either by safe controlled deorbiting or pushing out to beyond Earth Orbit.
Fuel must be left in the tank to remove the satellite, and not used till it's empty and the satellite is just dead weight in orbit that can't manoeuvre.
It won't ruin ground astronomy for long, algorithms to remove the streaks of satellites from the process are just a matter of time for them to be perfected
A long term problem that has devestating affects and needs to be addressed immediately? It's not gonna happen. They'll be dead before it affects them, so they'll just let later generations deal with the consequences. It's not like that's the first time that such catastrophic scenarios have been treated as such, it's pretty much the norm nowadays.
yep, i am pretty sure as it is now we will in the future, maybe even one we are going to still live in, have a kessler syndrom + unstopable global warming... because we can never and will never enforce any regulations on big corporations or nations.
Although it seems quite difficult, I do wonder if cyberconflicts could increase the risk of Kessler syndrome.
Yep at 6:37 I meant to say $100, not $1,000. I can't read 0's sometimes 🙇
Please respond and notice me!
If Julius Caesar started a space programme, it would be called LatinX! 😂😁😂
You also chose an... interesting image to illustrate the "incredible cost reductions" at 4:57 😄
This is SLS, a monumentally expensive program offering a massively expensive (per pound of mass delivered to orbit) ride to space. The main driver of price reduction of space launches in the past decade has been SpaceX, so their Falcon 9 would be the most appropriate illustration, but pretty much any other launch provider would make more sense here than showing us the SLS 😄
Just put on your glasses first to be sure
0-0---n
Words are hard
I love space and technology, but this has definitely started sounding like the prologue to a dystopian sci fi novel...
Ordered my star link wifi a couple months ago I can't wait to get it. Also why can't countries/companies add a device or program that at the end of a satellites life it comes down or explodes and destroys itself
We need moon and satellite observatories.
Satellites in low Earth orbit do experience small amounts of atmospheric drag, so they will eventually slow down and fall back down to Earth.
You know how everyone 40+ years ago didnt realize how bad plastic was then it kicked us in the ass? I feel like thats what we are doing with our space junk
Im imagining a sweet spot in Earths orbit where objects(satellites bits) will naturally fall into the atmoshphere relatively quickly, but far enough that a thruster on board can keep the sat in orbit cheaply, maybe via solar panels and lasers, or just lasers on earth. Then we just have to wait say ten or twenty years for all the lil peices to fall in and burn up if they are destroyed or are otherwise decommissioned. Anyone know if this is done?
I hope, all the Government leave the civilization war and start the space exploration war. That would be a good choice for humanity. More competitors, more discoveries.
- sorry in advance, my english is bad.
It's always odd to me that the space lab sends these pics of earth for us to see, yet there is never a satellite in view ? How is this possible when satellites surround the globe like plastic bottles bobbing about in the oceans ?