“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

This quote sounds familiar, but can't pinpoint who said it. It almost feels like I should know even...

Any pointers? :)

Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, Douglas Adams. Everyone here knows that but the real world is different.

Douglas Adams

Well, we do have thousands of airplane-sizes airplanes wandering the atmosphere at mach speeds. And we wouldn’t consider the airspace "full".

It's full enough that it requires continuous guidance and collision avoidance measures. And the majority of those planes are not going even close to as fast as satellites in LEO/MEO move.

There is a team at NASA tracking all that stuff though

>NASA and the DoD cooperate and share responsibilities for characterizing the satellite (including orbital debris) environment. DoD’s Space Surveillance Network tracks discrete objects as small as 2 inches (5 centimeters) in diameter in low Earth orbit and about 1 yard (1 meter) in geosynchronous orbit. Currently, about 15,000 officially cataloged objects are still in orbit. The total number of tracked objects exceeds 21,000. Using special ground-based sensors and inspections of returned satellite surfaces, NASA statistically determines the extent of the population for objects less than 4 inches (10 centimeters) in diameter.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debr...

Sure, that's pretty common knowledge isn't it?

GGP was trying to make the point that airplanes don't collide and that they travel fast but that's not the whole story, there are a lot of people working hard to keep it that way.

Also, even though NASA is tracking stuff there isn't much they can do about it, it's mostly to help determine new orbits and to make sure that launches do not accidentally intersect with some chunk of space debris.

My point was that we can apply the same technological solutions we’ve found for aerospace also to spaceflight.

We can use tracking and modern software solutions to plan where to put new satellites.

4500 is far from the maximum possible.

> We can use tracking and modern software solutions to plan where to put new satellites.

And of course they will do just that.

But satellites carry only relatively little propellant and the bulk of it is used to maintain altitude, especially for LEO/MEO satellites. Serious course changes are going to be pretty rare whereas they are the norm for anything with wings.

On another note, airtravel (not general aviation) tends to happen in 'corridors' with traffic control handing over at the borders of control zones. For satellites the situation is vastly different.

The same technological solutions that we've found for aerospace have almost no application in satellite orbital computations and the management of fleets of satellites.

That has a lot to do with human lives being within those objects and gravity pulling them down to earth potentially being a danger to more human lives. All that versus floating space junk and dollars down the drain for the engineering, development, launch, and ongoing functionality of those satellites.

I would not describe any commercial aviation operation as "wandering". The rules are very clearly defined and very strict about where and when a plane is allowed to be. It's very much actively managed.

Take a look at the airspace around a major airport when a storm system moves in. Airspace is absolutely congested.