Re:With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband s...
by alkonaut on Thursday May 04, 2017 @06:22AM
(#14263805)
> This is a little like asking if there's enough space left in earths oceans to float a few thousand pingpong balls.
I'd be pretty nervous about throing 10k pingpong balls into the atlantic IF the collision of two pingpong balls was disastrous :)
Obviously these satellites will be carefully placed NOT to collied - but the effect of a collision is pretty bad. The problem is that any one of them might collide with some tiny piece of junk, turning it 1000 pieces of junk (which is now 1000x more likely to collide with something, and impossible to control). These satellites won't tip the scales, but it's a nightmare scenario that comes ever closer with every satellite launched.
Re:With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband s...
by path411 on Saturday May 06, 2017 @12:48AM
(#14278728)
Remember that space is 3d. Not only do you have the surface area of the entire earth + the area from where LEO starts. You can then stack layers on top of that.
I'd be pretty nervous about throing 10k pingpong balls into the atlantic IF the collision of two pingpong balls was disastrous :)
Obviously these satellites will be carefully placed NOT to collied - but the effect of a collision is pretty bad. The problem is that any one of them might collide with some tiny piece of junk, turning it 1000 pieces of junk (which is now 1000x more likely to collide with something, and impossible to control). These satellites won't tip the scales, but it's a nightmare scenario that comes ever closer with every satellite launched.