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Comment by paulsutter | Hacker News Reader

Space manufacturing. SpaceX Starship should get a kilogram to orbit for $250 (actually Elon's goal is to get the costs down to $10 per kilogram[1] which seems insanely crazy but be forewarned).

Historic costs[2]:

- Space Shuttle: $41,000/kg (24.4 t, ~$1B)

- Delta IV Heavy: $14,600/kg (24 t, $350M)

- Falcon Heavy 2R: $1,700/kg (57 t, $95M)

A good first product to make in zero G is ZBLAN, fiber optics so clear that they require up to 100x fewer repeaters than ordinary fiber[3], lightweight and very high value.

[1] https://wccftech.com/spacex-launch-costs-down-musk/

[2] https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-put-1-kilo-in...

[3] https://www.issnationallab.org/blog/taking-zblan-optical-fib...

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Which brings us to what I think is a bigger issue: Space is a finite quantity, similar to land and EM spectrum.

It's a land race for space. SpaceX and similar are racing to put their junk up their in orbit as soon as possible so they can squat. So who is going to regulate space? Will China Russia and North Korea respect ownership at 10KM up? What happens when GPS and GLONAS go out because of debris and some stupid war?

Humans have shown no ability to manage resource constraints like this without losing their shit and fucking it up. I have no faith that there won't be space drama in the next few hundred years. Maybe this hundred years.

And, to your point, the fact that it's cheaper, and it will get cheaper yet, is going to exacerbate these space regulatory issues.

There is plenty of space in "space" or more like in the earth orbit. Trash is a problem because it may be hard to track or even have unknown trajectory, space isn't. It need global coordination ofc but its not like with planes where everything can changes within minutes due to whether or some kind of emergency. and there is no need for high vehicle density like around an airport.

We used to think that way about oceans: they’re essentially infinite so don’t worry about overfishing, and since the solution to pollution is dilution we can use the “infinite” oceans for that. This was 50–100 years ago and here we are.

There is plenty space in the ocean. We could put all human trash ever created and put it in a box and sink it somewhere in the ocean. there is more than enough space. The problem is we cant make that box and without the box it affects the life. Earth orbit however doesn't have anything that could be affected by trash beside what we put there and deem to not yet be trash.

Also keep in mind that humans may have put several hundred tons into orbit by now in total which is basically nothing if you compare that to the millions of tons of plastic that goes to the ocean every year. And ofc there are many many other things than plastic that ends up in the ocean as well. also most of the stuff we put in orbit came or crashed back to earth especially the large and heavy stuff like MIR and the space shuttles.

> There is plenty of space in "space"

To quote Benjamin Sisko from DS9, "It just doesn't work that way".

> Will China Russia and North Korea respect ownership at 10KM up?

I'm guessing you mean 100KM altitude? What happens at ten is clearly regulated and done so with excellent international cooperation, probably more efficiently than any other aspect of global politics.

> What happens when GPS and GLONAS go out because of debris and some stupid war?

Geostationary Earth Orbits are kept incredibly clean at 38,000km away.

Regardless we use Beidou? Or the Indian version? I have cheap retail gps sensors bought online for a few dollars here that can pick up all of them.

People should be wary of the kneejerk pessimism that permeates online discourse and not underestimate human ability to solve seemingly insurmountable issues.

By calling it junk I feel like you’re editorializing.

Some time after that (hopefully) technology will reach a new kind of escape velocity where something like an escape to a cabin in the woods becomes viable. If humans are still around that option will do interesting things for regulation. They probably wont see it that way and look back at us in disbelief.

Relevant Kurzgesagt https://youtu.be/yS1ibDImAYU

The gist: we could trap ourselves on earth for generations with space debris.

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