This is to help people scared by the Gravity movie and by videos, TikToks etc that claim that space won’t be usable in the future because of space debris.
Thanks for writing this. Here is my question: What if a nation, under threat from a more-advanced but sattlite-dependent military, sent up a sattlite that was just a literal box of sand with a detinator (or some other mechanism) to suddenly open up an disperse the sand?
If the sattlite were in geoasynchronous orbit at a specific latitude, wouldn't the resulting cloud of sand effectively become a bilion bullets striking -- twice per day -- anything in geosynchronous orbit at or near that latitude?
Other specific orbits could be targeted as well in this way. Even if it can eventually be cleaned up, this seems like a low-budget strategy to open a window for an attack.
Thanks for writing this. Here is my question: What if a nation, under threat from a more-advanced but sattlite-dependent military, sent up a sattlite that was just a literal box of sand with a detinator (or some other mechanism) to suddenly open up an disperse the sand?
If the sattlite were in geoasynchronous orbit at a specific latitude, wouldn't the resulting cloud of sand effectively become a bilion bullets striking -- twice per day -- anything in geosynchronous orbit at or near that latitude?
Other specific orbits could be targeted as well in this way. Even if it can eventually be cleaned up, this seems like a low-budget strategy to open a window for an attack.