10mo ago

The age of true space innovation is here

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North Korea like: if I can't have a space program nobody else can either

This is false advertising.
Starlink was the first company and product designed to intentionally increase space junk.
Although not needing to provide and internet connection does mean FragSat is a cheaper and more superior product.
- Starlink to date has not had any collisions, and it saved me from Comcast.
  
  Flirting with Kessler syndrome so you can land trick shots in Fortnight.
  The only benefit starlink has over transitional satellite internet is relatively low latency, you could have gotten a different satellite provider.
  Just because there hasn’t been a collision yet, doesn’t mean there won’t be. And there has been measurable damage to ground based telescope observations due to the constant stream of starlink sats overhead.
- Pretty sure the joke is aimed at cubesats
- Launch a constellation of satellites that provide fibre optic levels of Internet service and cell signal anywhere on the globe.
  Zron : nyeeh! Space junk! Elongated Muskrat!
  You're utterly cooked, buddy.
  
  Yeah but who wants a Nazi as their ISP?
  
  Several things can be true at the same time.
  Starlink exists to give SpaceX nongovernment launches to boost its numbers and make it look good as a stock.
  It also happens to provide a service at what is almost certainly a loss, considering each satellite only lasts a few years and thus requires a constant stream of replacements to be launched.
  It also happens to fill the sky with a bunch of garbage that will inevitably hit something and lead to a spray of even more garbage.

Just spit balling here but is there any reason we couldn't also make the radioactive?
- Russian-American de-escalation line transcript from Dec 14th 2024:
  Saltzman: Dmitry, care to enlighten me as to why exactly Roscosmos felt the need to launch a Soyuz with nothing but depleted uranium marbles on board?
  Rogozin: Scy-eence
  Saltzman: OK, and why the second one?
  Rogozin: Ree-plecibility
  Saltzman: ...
  Rogozin: Vhat? I dought you like spacebolls

"Just another way we're bringing space down to earth"
^ Fantastic tag line

Honestly you could do a ton of damage if you were to just yeet a metric ton or so of sand and gravel into LEO and released it in an exciting fashion
- Make sure it's in a retrograde orbit for maximum fuckery
- an exciting fashion
  You're like a poet for the self-censorious TikTok generation ;)
- sand accelerated on a glitter bomb like spinner so you cover all angles
- Of course you could, but good luck letting Leo agree to that, he was even squeamish about the anal sex.

Imagine a starship load of glitter. The horror!
- That sounds like a good way to find a spaceship full of dead astronauts with very glittery lungs.
- Or when the sun hits the glitter mass just right: the beauty?

Kessler Syndrome is Bestler Syndrome.
Except for the Space Force, that is.

To be fair, something like this bud scaled up would be the only realistic way to try and fight off a hypothetical extraterrestrial invasion. Once I saw it suggested we could mass-deploy Thunder Wells to fill an orbital window with a cloud of giant steel shrapnel.
A Thunder Well is literally a bore hole with a nuke in it, and a huge steel plate on top. It was done originally as and experiment and they never did find that fucking plate; it might have been vaporized, but that's nothing a little redesign couldn't fix.
Wikipedia article

Simpsons did it already...
But really look at project Westford created a bit of stink
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford
- Thanks for the link, I hadn't heard about that before.

HIMARS IN SPAAAAAACE
- HIMARS chonky uncle

Steel balls touching each other would cold weld themselves into a clump if all touching like that. They're going to need a couple design changes.
- Not if they’re made on earth and exposed to the atmosphere.
  The layer of iron oxide on the outside will prevent cold welding.
  Or just coat them all in grease.
  
  All the vibration from them rubbing against each other as they achieve orbit will rub off the Oxide layer. A light oil would probably do just fine.
- It's not gay if steel balls don't touch.
- Pam.
- Cold welding is crazy...

Forbidden ball pit

That logo of a cinder block on the moon is incredible.

Hey y'all got any more of them dark ages?

Imagine if this was how we tricked capitalists and climate deniers into launching the UV Broad Spectrum Light shielding bubbles that expand in low pressure. Classic rugpull moment.
- But UV makes the food grow.
  
  I'm not talking about the robot uprising from the matrix, I'm referring to a potential solution to climate change. I guess UV was a dumb choice of words on my part, I'll own that.

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