On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything
by Nate Silver · 12 Aug 2024 · 848pp · 227,015 words
-base percentage in Moneyball. Instead, he thinks in metaphors. On his Substack, roon outlined eight AI scenarios with exotic names like “Balrog Awakened” and “Ultra Kessler Syndrome.” The latter—coined after an astronomical phenomenon postulated by NASA’s Donald Kessler wherein space debris collides in a continuous chain reaction that prevents humanity
Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace
by Ronald J. Deibert · 13 May 2013 · 317pp · 98,745 words
debris objects of ten centimetres or more that pose risks to operational satellites. (There are many smaller objects that present a hazard as well.) The Kessler Syndrome, put forward by NASA scientist Donald Kessler in 1976, theorizes that there will come a time when such debris clouds will make near-Earth orbital
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unusable. Although undersea fibre-optic cables provide the bulk of transit for global communications, they cannot sustain the entire load. A scenario such as the Kessler Syndrome, were it to come true, would end global cyberspace as we know it. Scientists have very few realistic solutions for cleaning up space debris. Space
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wayward Russian satellite: The 2009 satellite collision is detailed in “Satellite Collision Leaves Significant Debris Clouds,” Orbital Debris Quarterly News 13, no.2 (2009). The Kessler Syndrome is discussed in detail in Burton G. Cour-Palais and Donald J. Kessler, “Collision Frequency of Artificial Satellites: The Creation of a Debris Belt,” Journal
The New Gold Rush: The Riches of Space Beckon!
by Joseph N. Pelton · 5 Nov 2016 · 321pp · 89,109 words
to rise. Space debris continues to accumulate, with some 23,000 space objects larger than a baseball being tracked. Dr. Donald Kessler, noted for the “Kessler Syndrome” that projects a runaway cascade of space junk , has forecasted a major space collision every 10 years. This projection is based on there not being
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800 low Earth orbit satellites and rumors that SpaceX might deploy a 4000 low Earth orbit constellation have occasioned even greater concern recently that the Kessler Syndrome could materialize sooner rather than later . You might ask at this point, well what should be done? Although the agenda is far from clear, action
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should they indeed make a direct hit. Although there is a great deal of space out there, space scientist Donald Kessler, famous for predicting the Kessler Syndrome, has suggested that every 10 years—or less—we will have a major space collision. Such an event will unfortunately generate perhaps 2000 new debris
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, shifts in Earth’s magnetic field that alter the Van Allen Belt’s protective shielding of Earth, and runaway orbital space debris known as the Kessler Syndrome (see Planetary Defense). CubesatA very small 1 unit cube-shaped satellite 10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm that is often used for student experiments. There
Wasteland: The Dirty Truth About What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, and Why It Matters
by Oliver Franklin-Wallis · 21 Jun 2023 · 309pp · 121,279 words
up mission, in case the cloud of trash hurtling around the planet puts an explosive end to future space missions. This hypothetical event, known as Kessler syndrome, predicts that unless we act soon, human spaceflight will be grounded by what is, in effect, space littering.5 At this point it will not
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kayayei (‘she who carries the burden’) 126, 133–4, 137 Keep America Beautiful 62–3, 108, 323 Keep Britain Tidy 63 Kemsley, Kent 42–5 Kessler syndrome 3–4 Khian Sea (‘Ash Boat’) 105 King Minos’s palace, Knossos, Crete 147–8 King’s Cross 75 King, Summer 278, 279–80, 281
When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach
by Ashlee Vance · 8 May 2023 · 558pp · 175,965 words
satellites could bash into each other in orbit, which would be catastrophic for our modern way of life. There’s a phenomenon known as the Kessler syndrome that predicts that low Earth orbit could turn into an absolute shitshow as the result of a relatively small number of collisions. One satellite would
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Thompson and, 348–349 transparency of, 394 Ventions LLC and, 250, 257–258 Whitesides and, 423 Kennedy, Fred, 13, 37–38 Kennedy Space Center, 174 Kessler syndrome, 131 Key, John, 220, 221, 222, 223 Khosla Ventures, 206–207, 209, 214 Khrushchev, Nikita, 440 King, P. J., 423–424 Klupar, Pete, 51, 88
The End of Astronauts: Why Robots Are the Future of Exploration
by Donald Goldsmith and Martin Rees · 18 Apr 2022 · 192pp · 63,813 words
thousands of smaller pieces. Most of this litter will orbit the Earth for years on end.15 The growing satellite swarm threatens to generate a “Kessler effect,” named after a NASA expert in space detritus, David Kessler, who predicted a self-reinforcing cascade when the remnants of collisions themselves collide to generate
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still more debris.16 The Kessler effect would mimic the current situation of seaborne waste, whose interactions follow a fractal process that produces ever-smaller particles of metal and plastic. Although three
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the estimated trillions of pieces of trash floating within the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located in the North Pacific between North America and Japan. The Kessler effect could make near-Earth orbit difficult or impossible to utilize during the decades before the development of a satisfactory cleanup technique. The problem, which affects
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Space. Can the Federal Government Keep Up?,” Washington Post, July 23, 2020. 16. Louis de Gouyon Matignon, “The Kessler Syndrome,” Space Legal Issues, March 27, 2019, https://www.spacelegalissues.com/space-law-the-kessler-syndrome/. 17. L. Lebreton et al., “Evidence That the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is Rapidly Accumulating Plastic,” Nature Scientific Reports
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, Lyndon, 45 JUICE mission, 89 Juno, 24 Jurvetson, Steve, 39 Kelly, Scott, 33 Kennedy, John, 4, 10, 13, 119 Kepler, Johannes, 49 Kessler, David, 47 Kessler effect, 47, 48 Kimball, Dan, 124 Korolev, Sergei, 4 Lagrange points, 108; L4 and L5, 25, 144 Law of the Sea Convention, 133 laws in space