Moving all of astronomy to space based observations is entirely incompatible with the way that instruments are funded, built, and deployed. It is only valid for a set of highly specific and well funded observatories that take decades to get off the ground and can never be updated, improved, or modified to search new scientific directions.

Why don’t “we” just build more cell towers?

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JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-]

> Why don’t “we” just build more cell towers?

Why is littering our landscape with cell towers and power and fiber lines inherently better than putting this stuff in space?

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stouset an hour ago | parent [-]

Google “Kessler syndrome”.

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JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-]

I am aware of no orbital solutions for a catastrophic Kessler cascade in LEO. The only place you could engineer one is in GEO, because that’s a singular orbit, not a plane much less a volume.

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stouset 22 minutes ago | parent [-]

First, you never specified LEO, only “space”.

Second, the situation is already so bad that current satellites in LEO already require active collision avoidance systems in order to avoid becoming sources of debris themselves. Starlink alone reports over 1,600 close encounters each week.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> you never specified LEO, only “space” What I said applies to space, too, outside GEO, for the number of satellites anyone is currently talking about launching. > the situation is already so bad that current satellites in LEO already require active collision avoidance systems in order to avoid becoming sources of debris themselves They require collision avoidance to avoid being lost. There is no risk of a Kessler cascade in LEO right now and nobody who can do orbital mechanics is claiming as much. We’d need millions more satellites than we have right now to start approaching the point where atmospheric clearance falls below the rate of new-debris production. And even then, you’re talking about a problem in specific orbits for months, maybe years. In the meantime, you get to allow nature to reclaim huge amounts of land from cell towers and conduit.