[spockz]

I’m all for learning how to do space flight better and getting all the regulations in place and getting experience with space launches. The only thing that worries me is whether we will end up in some situation like we are now with plastics that appear everywhere in our food supply chain and are a problem also because the unknown unknowns.

Will we still be able to operate society when we rely so much on all the services provided by These smaller satellites and there is a solar flare. Indeed, what if some event does trigger the Kessler Syndrome. Just like see radiation from Fukushima show at the us west coast in fish.

Will it be too late to do something with all the knowledge we have gained?

[SonicScrub]

With the CubeSats revolution there aren't a lot of unknown unknowns. The risks are clear, and the benefits far outstrip them. Again, as mentioned above, Kessler Syndrome is of little threat in the low earth orbit which CubeSats operate in.

I don't really understand the argument that coming to rely on CubeSats puts us at risk because they could be damaged by a solar flare. And therefore we shouldn't reap the benefits of this new technology? That line of thinking is like rejecting the advancement of electricity because we will be worse-off in the event of a power outage. Sure, black-out incidents occur, and sometimes (like the recent Texas outage) people are ill-prepared. But how is choosing not to pursue electricity because of black-out risk the better alternative? Surely benefiting from the technology in the far more common scenario of normal operation is better than not having it at all.