In almost all cases of Elon having one of his companies do something good, he was more of a hindrance than a help.
“Starship doesn’t need a deluge system”
“Put the charge port on the left hand rear, because that works better for the garage of the place I’m renting in Bel Air” (Yes, really)
SpaceX is his most successful company, and it’s also the one that’s best at keeping Elon away from anything that matters.
LEO Internet satellites aren’t a good idea. They’re threatening Kessler Syndrome and fucking up radio telescopes. It’s also convincing other spacefaring nations that they also need LEO Internet satellites, and that’s only going to make those problems worse. Just lay fiber.
Then there’s the Boring Company. “Digging is easy, you just need to ignore environmental regulations and everything will get done quickly and within budget”, Elon thinks. Well, he did ignore environmental regulations, but it didn’t get done quickly or within budget. The Las Vegas Loop is a low throughput novelty (so perfect for Vegas, I guess). Any moron can increase the capacity of the system by orders of magnitude just by putting some rails in those tunnels.
Are the starlink satellites threatening Kessler syndrome? I thought they were so low it’s not a significant issue. Sounds like the more pressing issue is how quickly they deorbit and how bad they are light pollution wise. Idk though I could just be ignorant on the topic; happy to learn more about it.
Curious about why the charger location was an issue too.
There are several effects of Kessler Syndrome. The one people focus on is the worst one where there’s so much junk that we can’t safely get anything past that orbit for decades or even centuries. That won’t happen in LEO, because, as you say, stuff will come down with the bit of atmospheric drag at that height.
Which doesn’t solve the other issue, which is destroying everything in LEO right now. Astronauts would likely die.
The charger location is what’s forcing Model S owners to back into supercharger parking spaces. Everyone else was inconvenienced for Elon’s benefit.
Also, its been observed that pieces colliding together can be thrown into a higher orbit. Or more accurately, a more elliptic orbit with a much higher apogee than it had before. That means a Kessler Syndrome event in a lower orbit could start a chain reaction in higher orbits.
Also immediately obvious was the high
susceptibility of the fragment to solar radiation
pressure, demonstrated by rapid and dramatic
changes in its orbit. From an initial orbit of
about 1365 km by 1445 km with an inclination
of 74 degrees, the fragment’s perigee began to
decrease while its apogee increased. Within
four weeks the orbit had been perturbed into
one of 750 km by 1895 km. At this point,
atmospheric drag became the dominant factor,
causing the object to reenter the atmosphere a
little more than two weeks later on 3 June (see
figure). Thus, the fragment existed for only 43
days, despite originating in an orbit from which
decay normally requires thousands of years.
Good news is that they won’t last very long in orbit doing since the perigee is lowered. However, having so many fragments all at once would probably be very bad.
In almost all cases of Elon having one of his companies do something good, he was more of a hindrance than a help.
“Starship doesn’t need a deluge system”
“Put the charge port on the left hand rear, because that works better for the garage of the place I’m renting in Bel Air” (Yes, really)
SpaceX is his most successful company, and it’s also the one that’s best at keeping Elon away from anything that matters.
LEO Internet satellites aren’t a good idea. They’re threatening Kessler Syndrome and fucking up radio telescopes. It’s also convincing other spacefaring nations that they also need LEO Internet satellites, and that’s only going to make those problems worse. Just lay fiber.
Then there’s the Boring Company. “Digging is easy, you just need to ignore environmental regulations and everything will get done quickly and within budget”, Elon thinks. Well, he did ignore environmental regulations, but it didn’t get done quickly or within budget. The Las Vegas Loop is a low throughput novelty (so perfect for Vegas, I guess). Any moron can increase the capacity of the system by orders of magnitude just by putting some rails in those tunnels.
Are the starlink satellites threatening Kessler syndrome? I thought they were so low it’s not a significant issue. Sounds like the more pressing issue is how quickly they deorbit and how bad they are light pollution wise. Idk though I could just be ignorant on the topic; happy to learn more about it.
Curious about why the charger location was an issue too.
There are several effects of Kessler Syndrome. The one people focus on is the worst one where there’s so much junk that we can’t safely get anything past that orbit for decades or even centuries. That won’t happen in LEO, because, as you say, stuff will come down with the bit of atmospheric drag at that height.
Which doesn’t solve the other issue, which is destroying everything in LEO right now. Astronauts would likely die.
The charger location is what’s forcing Model S owners to back into supercharger parking spaces. Everyone else was inconvenienced for Elon’s benefit.
I thought I remembered reading that the starlink satellites are at a lower altitude than the ISS but I do see now that’s not the case. Thanks
Also, its been observed that pieces colliding together can be thrown into a higher orbit. Or more accurately, a more elliptic orbit with a much higher apogee than it had before. That means a Kessler Syndrome event in a lower orbit could start a chain reaction in higher orbits.
https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/quarterly-news/pdfs/ODQNv7i3.pdf
Good news is that they won’t last very long in orbit doing since the perigee is lowered. However, having so many fragments all at once would probably be very bad.