this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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There are 2,000-plus dead rockets in orbit—here’s a rare view of one (arstechnica.com)
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/spaceflight
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[–] Zectivi 25 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

This is both cool and scary.

A few years ago, I was walking my dog at night just after sunset and looked up as I normally do to star gaze. My eyes caught a glimpse of a fast moving dot moving across the sky. I was getting the ISS reminders at the time and had none for the day, so I opened up Sky Guide and used the gyro feature to identify it. The dot happened to be an old Soviet rocket from the 1950s.

This opened up a different way of thinking about how much we’re tossing into the sky, and if objects are still floating by some 70 years later, what will our sky look like in another 70 with the accelerated launches we have today.

The advancements we’ve made as a human race is amazing, but quite scary at the same time.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Or, looked at another way: everything we've ever thrown in the ocean... Is still in the ocean. Space junk seems unique because it is moving. But really we've been discarding crap wherever for all of human history.

[–] Zectivi 8 points 4 months ago

Absolutely a fair point and I thank you for mentioning it. I hope through our continued evolution, we learn to stop polluting our surroundings.

[–] threelonmusketeers 5 points 4 months ago

everything we’ve ever thrown in the ocean… Is still in the ocean

Including most of the first stages for the aforementioned rockets, which were much larger than the upper stages.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I’ve always figured that if one day there is a star trek like civilization cruising the galaxy, they’ll come up on our dead planet, see all the shit floating around and say something insightful about the great filter and blip on out of there.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Honestly I think "civilization" is the great filter.

Of course this is just pure conjecture, but it seems that once you're past a hunter-gatherer society, you're going to have much more capacity for changing and damaging your environment than you do for understanding the damage you're causing, and I'm not entirely convinced there's a way to run a highly technological society without consuming more resources than are strictly available. or inventing nuclear weapons which are a real Pandora's box. Then add to that the tendency of evolution to produce pretty cutthroat species, which seem like they'd be more successful at prevailing over the less aggressive ones.

I think it's just more likely for technologically advanced societies to eventually fuck themselves over by either using up their resources, or just straight-up destroying themselves in some pointless war or another

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That actually sums up my view pretty accurately as well. I’ve tried to look back and see where the overall path could have changed. Even if you were to hypothetically remove oil from existence, we were still well on our way to wiping out whales and other fatty sea mammals for the same purposes.

As to the evolutionary pressures leading to cutthroat species, yeah I think that’s exactly what it is. By the time a world altering species can begin to see beyond itself and think holistically about its environment it has already done so much damage.

Random tangent- I highly recommend the Children of Time trilogy from Adrian Tchaikovsky if you’re into sci fi. I describe it as evolutionary biology sci fi, and eventually it goes into kind of a ‘what is consciousness/what is living’ bend. Took a little to get used to the structure of the first book, but man that first one especially I dug.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

As to the evolutionary pressures leading to cutthroat species, yeah I think that’s exactly what it is. By the time a world altering species can begin to see beyond itself and think holistically about its environment it has already done so much damage.

And it's not that some members of those species won't see the problems just like many of us meatbags have for a loooong time now, but that on average it won't be nearly widespread enough to make a difference before shit really hits the fan.

Oh and thank you for the book tip! I don't think I've ever read any of Adrian's stuff even though I am a huge sci-fi nerd. The description in the book's wiki article definitely makes it sound like my thing

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

US Space Command said in December that the population of space debris in orbit has increased by 76 percent since 2019 to 44,600 objects. The uptick in space junk is primarily due to debris-generating events, such as anti-satellite tests or occasional explosions.

Holy crap, that's a huge increase in such a short time. Were there other dumbfuck ASAT tests during this time than that one Russian one?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

China, India, USSR, Russia, and the US have tested anti satellite systems. The US last public test was in 2008 and banned future tests in 2022. Russia last tested in 2021. China 2018, India 2019.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon#History_by_country

The alternative to smashing them with a missile is a high altitude nuclear bomb to fry them from the EMP blast without all the debris.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Oh yeah I know about the previous tests but the article specifically said that there's been a 76% increase since 2019. Guess the Indian test might also have played into it, I'd completely forgotten about that one

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This reads like the intro text for some spacefaring RPG. Take out a loan to borrow an old launch craft, nip up to orbit and grab some scrap, fly back down and use it to upgrade your fleet. Probably already exists as a KSP mod!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Space Engineers scrapyard scenario, a bit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

We should fund debris bounties, starting with big dead 2nd stages and satellites that weren't passivated.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Fucking elon, man. Dude is a cancer.