Houston (and the rest of the world), we have a problem with space junk. This is beyond the issue of the orbital space around Earth looking increasingly like the proverbial teenager’s closet—the growing manifestation of the Kessler Syndrome is a recognized risk to operational space platforms, in addition to a serious threat to human life in orbit.
Nations (and thus the private companies that operate in them) are reluctant to develop and launch mitigation measures—that would basically send junk objects either back into the atmosphere to burn up or farther out into space where they’re less in the way—because these same clean up technologies could also be used in space warfare to disable or destroy a combatant nation’s space platforms.
The results from the Kessler Syndrome multiply by orders of magnitude as more private ventures launch satellites (including for the noble purpose of providing Internet service to regions currently underserved). There is a real possibility that a fission-like orbit-wide shotgun blast of shredding debris will smash to smithereens everything in Earth orbit—leaving nothing there operational. There also would likely be no humans in orbit left alive, the (technically questionable) story in “Gravity” notwithstanding. In a space warfare scenario, in which such a catastrophe is deliberately initiated, the damage is further increased.
This situation has plenty to do with life on Earth. Everything we do is affected by satellite systems of some sort, primarily for telecommunications and data connectivity and also for remote sensing, imaging, weather forecasting, and digital mapping. Although there are notable installations of terrestrial long lines, such as inter-regional fiberoptic trunk lines and sub-oceanic cables, if there were no space communications systems we would notice the results. Slow Internet wouldn’t even begin to describe the situation—the functionality of computers and mobile devices would drop to something unrecognizable (except perhaps to those alive before the Internet and cellular phone era). Forget streaming entertainment. Don’t expect your social media, news, banking, or favorite shopping websites to be fully functional. Your GPS device (or GPS app on your phone) would be effectively bricked.
The reason is these websites and devices (including cell towers after the last mile) all need to connect to something distant from themselves to fetch the services users are requesting—and a critical portion of that traverses satellites in orbit. Remove the satellites from the communications path, and these services are effectively disabled. General users will not be first priority for access to the remaining terrestrial telecommunications—you may expect those resources to go to government, public safety, hospitals, and (of course) the military. Remember trying to get through on your mobile phone on 9/11 (when the satellite platforms were all operational)?
I’d noticed in the 1980s that satellites were the rage, and telecommunications providers were rushing to implement this newly available capability that obviated the need for expensive terrestrial infrastructure. From a financial ROI perspective it made perfect sense. Why lease property when there was no need for it? Why retain maintenance crews for obsolete remote mountaintop sites? HF (shortwave) became quaint and passé—I remember seeing a beautiful old rhombic antenna in ruins from neglect. The point here is not sentimentality for a bygone era—instead, if the Kessler Syndrome breaks out in all its (gory) glory, that rhombic antenna could be coming to an open field near you.
This discussion of the possible loss of satellite based services is for the purpose of identifying what might be done beforehand in preparation for when there are no space based systems left operational. In future posts, I intend to explore possible options such as mesh networks, smart re-implementation of shortwave, re-buildout of terrestrial microwave (like that used in the 1950s), tropospheric scatter, and other ground based communications links that might replace satellite platforms in the event they became unavailable. Stir in some 21st Century technologies and I think we have some possibilities.
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