• Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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    23 hours ago

    And how much space junk will end up there? Cleaning up afterwards costs more money and long term thinking isn’t something shareholders care about over more profit today.

    The tech is interesting, hopefully governments across the entire planet regulate it well enough. Although at the same time, its not like we really need to care either. In our lifetime its not like any of us are likely to be able to afford to go to space anyway, but it would probably be a good idea not to ruin it if we have a choice.

    • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      It shouldn’t be too hard to engineer orbit decay as a feature to avoid space junk.

      Consider that space junk is so sparce it’s not really much if a consideration for launches. It’s like the rings of Saturn: the likelihood of a collision is so remote that they didn’t even consider it when we had a satellite move through it.

      • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        It’s like the rings of Saturn: the likelihood of a collision is so remote that they didn’t even consider it when we had a satellite move through it.

        I didn’t realize that, what mission is this your talking about? Cassini?

      • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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        16 hours ago

        Pretty sure its the asteroid belt, not planetary rings, that you don’t really need to think about when passing through.

        And yeah, it shouldn’t be too hard and yet look at all the junk already up there. Hopefully they can just be required to keep to very low orbits that decay rapidly.