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Comment by staticassertion | Hacker News Reader

Can't wait to be boiled alive on this stupid planet because we filled space with garbage.

If it makes you feel any better it's pretty much impossible to make Earth less habitable than anywhere else in a few light years, so I wouldn't worry about missing out on a space-paradise!

Modern economy: hold my beer and watch the exponent.

Throw enough nukes around and Europa might start to look a pleasant alternative.

At that point Kessler syndrome will be the least of our problems.

Every nuke on earth would not do that. The Earth is really big, and even a nuke would not affect a large portion of it.

well if we continue growing energy consumption 1% yoy, we boil off oceans in 400 years

DO you have a source for this? I cant't find something for 2400, but from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P... the prediction of the IPCC for 2300 is an increase of 3.0 to 12.6 °C that is really bad but by far not enough to start boiling the oceans.

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

i heartily recommend the whole series. i made a mistake in the post before - the post assumes 2.3% yoy.

The article shows that 2.3% is an extreme upper bonnet because humanity has already lost its need of ability to generate 2.3% more growth per year. It's another case of people looking at a logistic graph and pretending it's exponential

that's the underlying theme of the series - it shows that exponential growth of economy is tied to exponential growth of energy consumption and it's something economists can't quite wrap their heads around.

From my understanding of Kessler syndrome after reading more about it - only LEO would be locked out for a couple of centuries, even in a worst-case scenario. We should still be able to go beyond that with minimal repercussions.

This is in conflict with the Kurzgesagt video. I wonder what their source was for the Kessler effect preventing excursions into space altogether.

How exactly do you propose reaching higher orbits without going through LEO first?

You go through LEO, you just don't park there. Think direct insertion into higher-altitude orbits, in the style beginners in Kerbal Space Program do it - i.e. going straight up through LEO and only then turning sideways to gain orbital velocity.

The risk will be much lower (you'll be spending very little time in the band filled with hypervelocity bullets), but it'll also be much more expensive. You'll need a much bigger rocket.

How do you get to the outer solar system without going through the asteroid belt?

We don't worry about hitting an asteroid if going through the belt, because the density of objects is so low.

If you wanted to stay in the asteroid belt you would have many more opportunities for a collision, so avoiding asteroids becomes a lot more important.

Not an AE, but from my understanding of orbital mechanics, I think we usually use a LEO orbit to insert payloads into higher orbits or onto escape trajectories. Even Starship, which could be considered a next gen orbital vehicle, relies on LEO for reloading fuel before leaving Earth.

LEO is pretty important, first we have people there right now, and with the notable exceptions of weather and GPS, everything I take for granted in life that works because of satellites is in LEO. Not having it for 150 years would make space exponentially more expensive in every way.

The Kurzgesagt videos are well produced but aren't the greatest for accuracy in the details on a lot of topics, sadly.

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