this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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People keep posting that and it's like they don't actually think about it. Space is fucking enormous it's very well named. In order to fill all viable orbits up you would have to have literally hundreds of millions of satellites. It's not like they just whizzing around randomly, we know where they are, so any launch in rocket can avoid them, obviously so because there's never been a case of a rocket been hit by a satellite.
I think you are greatly underestimating how a chain reaction works.
This got brought up when the movie gravity came out (not a movie that really seems to understand physics itself). We don't have enough satellites in space for that kind of chain reaction to happen, and we know this for a fact because Russia has blown up some of their own satellites, and it hasn't caused a chain reaction.
There is a minimum number and density of satellites required for this situation to occur, even theoretically. We don't know exactly what that minimum number is, but we know that we are below it.
The potential for the issue is being taken seriously, but no one's actually suggesting that the issue has come about or that there is any risk of coming about in the near future. We're just implementing long-term safety measures.