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<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">The Australians have a plan using a very very high power earth based LASER.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">The object is noted. The LASER at a lower power setting is used to illuminate and <br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">confirm it is the correct object. Power is increased. Object is no longer a solid object.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Most of the ions are now captured by the earths magnetic field and become</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">part of the next Aurora show.<br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Kent WA5VJB<br></div><div><br></div>
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On Wednesday, September 23, 2020, 1:47:10 PM CDT, Phil Karn via Ground-Station <ground-station@lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
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<div><div dir="ltr">I am very seriously concerned about space debris. I just don't see any<br clear="none">easy ways to clean it up. It **might** be practical to demo a robotic<br clear="none">mission to de-orbit some of the larger intact satellites that represent<br clear="none">large chunks of the total mass in LEO, but there's nothing to do about<br clear="none">the zillions of tiny bits with 100x the specific energy of a rifle bullet.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">For amateur satellites and cubesats in general I think the only<br clear="none">practical option is to keep them in low, short-lived orbits that will<br clear="none">clean themselves out over time.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">I'm very seriously concerned about the part of Musk's huge constellation<br clear="none">in relatively high and long-lived LEO orbits. While all their satellites<br clear="none">are currently in 550 km orbits that aren't terribly long-lived, their<br clear="none">plans change constantly and they've already had approvals to put<br clear="none">thousands of satellites in long lived orbits up around 1,000 km. Each<br clear="none">spacecraft is 260 kg, and 1,440 satellites @ 260 kg each is 374 tonnes.<br clear="none">By comparison, the ISS is 420 tonnes in a much shorter-lived orbit (if<br clear="none">it were to fail or be abandoned).<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Despite his best efforts I expect some of his satellites *will* fail to<br clear="none">deorbit and some others *will* get hit and further contribute to the<br clear="none">Kessler syndrome. Already happened with one operational Iridium<br clear="none">satellite and there are many fewer of those.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">I still think fiber is the right answer for high speed Internet<br clear="none">connectivity to buildings in all but the most isolated places. The main<br clear="none">obstacle is political, not economic, especially the unholy alliance<br clear="none">between broadband providers and governments to restrict new entries to<br clear="none">the market. And it really bugs me whenever a political problem<br clear="none">encourages the squandering of a valuable natural resource.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">--Phil<div class="ydp31563e5cyqt2468413905" id="ydp31563e5cyqtfd79556"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div></div></div>
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