[ryankshaw]

Is Kessler syndrome the Great Filter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter)?

As in, is it the thing that makes it so no one else has broken out of their planet to come visit us?

I could totally see it being the case that as soon as a civilization gets good enough at putting stuff into space, they start putting a lot of stuff into space and then things start crashing into each other to the point that they can’t ever launch any more things into space and become stuck. Trapped by the artifacts of their own progress

[kmeisthax]

No. The space junk at a given orbit makes it unviable to put more satellites in that orbit, but launching beyond that orbit is still viable.

[throwaway888889]

How can you get past that orbit if there is all this junk destroying your rockets????

[lxgr]

I'd consider it much less likely than e.g. nuclear or maybe chemical/biological warfare.

Kessler syndrome (if even achievable with current technology) would be a major bummer for science and the global economy for a couple of decades (no more Starlink, but we still have good old geostationary satellites, so no ships and airplanes would get disconnected as a result), or at worst centuries, but would otherwise not form any threat to civilization, whereas nuclear winter is already very capable of wiping it out.

[m4rtink]

I think it would be actually the other way around - Starlink orbits aee low enough to be self cleaning & Starlink satellites can be (and are) rapidly replenished. So even if something from up above hits anfew, the debris would deorbit soon & new ones could be launched.

With GEO sats, unless you go for direct GEO insertion, it might still have issues reaching the final orbit. And even at GEO, there could be a debris cloud as well causing issues, at least until the sun and moon gravity perturbs it enough.

[fragmede]

> if even achievable with current technology

Launching a nail bomb into orbit would've been possible as soon as we were able to get into space, the only question is motivation. A terrorist state, say North Korea, threaten the rest of the planet and demand concessions once they're able to get any significant mass into orbit.

[ljsprague]

I would guess that it would still be possible to send things beyond earth's orbit with only a low probability of collision with debris but perhaps I'm wrong.

[to11mtm]

"Low" is tough to say until someone does some proper sort of 'true mapping' of space debris in the range somehow. Protection would require a lot of complexity and cost due to the need for shielding and the delta-v to move it up there.

[0x1ceb00da]

Every launch failure will result in more debris and even lower probability of a successful future launch.