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by dredmorbius
697 days ago
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Most of the countries named are already under heavy sanctions, and have proved resilient against them to a large extent. One problem with the Kessler Syndrome is that it's a runaway phenomenon, though one that evolves more slowly than most people appreciate. A few bad actors could trigger events which slowly start to seriously degrade at least low-to-mid Earth orbital ranges. Geosynchronous orbits are possibly less susceptible as the entire orbital ring is large, though geostationary orbital space, strictly along Earth's equator, is more constrained. The Starlink approach of putting comms satellites in very low Earth orbit, which clears fairly quickly, possibly mitigates this in two ways (it makes geosync less critically necessary, and de-orbits satellites quickly). But LEO is still where higher orbits eventually decay to, and might itself be affected with time as well. The lax regulatory problem, which invokes another underappreciated economic principle, Gresham's Law, is one that's appeared elsewhere and has proved hard to counter. I'd suggest not underestimating its possible noxious effects. |
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