[krisoft]

> We still don’t have any plan I’ve heard of for avoiding a cascade of space debris when satellites collide and turn into lots of fast moving shrapnel.

What do you mean we don’t have any plans to avoid that? It is a super well studied topic of satelite management. Full books have been written on the topic.

Here is just one: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20230002470/downloads/CA...

Did you think satelites are kept apart by good luck and providence?

[thephyber]

I am very aware that the US Air Force / Space Force monitor’s trajectories and calls satellite owners when there is an anticipated collision but that method doesn’t scale, especially with orders of magnitude more satellites in the same LEO shells.

And it still doesn’t solve the problem of a cascade causing shrapnel density to increase in an orbit shell which then causes satellites to use some of their scarce maneuver budget to avoid collision. But as soon as a satellite exhausts that budget, it becomes fodder for the shrapnel cascade.