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tmvphil | 4 months ago

How is a multiple square-kilometer radiator not just an inevitable Kessler syndrome disaster?

Edit: Some back of the envelope calculation suggests that the total cross-sectional area of all man-made orbiting satellites is around 55000 m^2. Just one 4km x 4km = 1600000m^2 starcloud would represent an increase by a factor of about 300. That's insane.

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caminante|4 months ago

Sounds like a "slippery slope" fallacy without further explanation.

tmvphil|4 months ago

Not sure what the slippery slope is here. The linked page imagines a 4km x 4km radiator/solar array. The cross-sectional area of the array is going to be directly proportional to the probability of impacting high velocity space debris. In such an event the amount of debris that would be generated could also scale with the area of the array. This seems bad