Friday, October 14, 2022

Man, it's getting kind of crowded up there

Looks like gnats in the summertime. 


7 comments:

  1. And Starlink is adding 50 or so at a time every week or two.

    What could possibly go wrong?

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  2. It doesn't seem to mention all the space junk that's up there -- used boosters, dead satellites, debris, etc.

    The next Carrington Event will be very interesting indeed.

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  3. To be fair, space is bigger than we imagine, but there is a finite orbital zone around the earth. We aren't there yet, but eventually there just won't be any more room for more stuff. Just imagine the computing power required to keep all that from crashing into each other and raining down on us.

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  4. I do some satellite spotting now and then, and the first time I saw a Starlink procession across the sky I did wonder seriously for a moment about an alien invasion. I had no idea what I was seeing.
    Even knowing that all those lights were put up there by homo sapiens, it's a bit unnerving to watch.
    PS to Rebecca: there's still plenty of open real estate here in Western Australia. But I daresay NASA and the other satellite owners are planning in that in mind. 'We didn't hit anyone with Skylab, and we barely knew what we were doing back then!'

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  5. I had no idea what I was seeing.

    Same here. I practically had a car wreck!

    I've watched a fair number of satellites, mostly by happenstance. Once I saw what was likely a tumbling piece of sky junk (maybe an old booster); as it made its pass over the sky, it was "blinking" off and on. Quite unnerving.

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  6. I had been alerted to it the first time I watched the satellite procession. It was still quite weird. Never would have imagined seeing something like that in my lifetime.

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  7. Mrs. Paco and I are signed up to get notices when the International Space Station flies over our area. We were out in the yard one night, watching it, when I noticed that one of our neighbors across the street was watching us through the glass of her front door. I could see her wave her husband over, and he took a quick look and moved on. They probably thought we out there communicating with our home planet.

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