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Making our own stars comes with responsibility (72)

Humanity's quest for the stars

Ever since we harnessed the fires of invention, and possibly before, humanity has been looking to the stars. Inspired by their cosmic beauty, the night sky made us ask questions: what are the stars, how do they influence our lives and if we can ever visit this outer world.

Well, we actually have managed to visit this world. Through collective work, rational frameworks and vision, the broke through the bounds of our atmosphere. Among our achievements, the moon landings and the exploration of our local solar system are the most obvious ones. While those achievements are worth celebrating, they have little impact to our daily lives.

Yet, there is another space related breakthrough that has had a major impact to modern life... 

Man made orbiters: our ubiquitous satellites

Satellites, while literally going unnoticed, are in many ways enabling our way of life. Think of the applications:

  • Communication (Satellite TV, internet to remote locations, aviation and naval comms etc.)
  • Navigation and positioning (GPS, accurate map making, precise time keeping)
  • Meteorology and earth observation (accurate weather predictions, precision agriculture) 
  • Defence (missile detection and early warning systems)

In other words, we have made our own stars to watch out for us when we are lost. And this star-making power has attracted all sorts of important players. Governments and companies are scrambling to send their own satellites into space and secure this advantage.

But it is possible to have too much of a good thing, it seems 

Collectively managing our (space) back yard

The recent partially regulated, massive launch and operation of satellites has actually led to space congestion. And the nice spots to place a satellite that guarantees good quality signal and wide reach are few. As of 2025, there are over 10,000 active satellites in orbit, and tens of thousands of debris objects being tracked. So launching too many satellites is already straining our shared resource: space.

But the real danger comes from mismanaging our shared space so badly that it actually becomes less useful to all of us. NASA scientist Donald Kessler rang the alarm bell - if some of those satellites malfunction and fall from their allocated slot, they might hit other satellites too and make a satellite domino. This will not only destroy much equipment but will also make a belt around the earth of unusable space - you cannot send a new satellite where there is too much debris.

Naturally, to keep enjoying the benefits of our space technology, we need to find a way to harmoniously use our resources. And there are many proposed solutions that range from removing debris, making a global system to authorize launches or otherwise enable global collaboration another way.

As always, the actual value is not brought by science per se but rather about how we make up rules to jointly use it. We have learned to go for the stars - next stop, how to work together!


 

Comments

  1. HipthiOctober 6, 2025 at 10:38 AM

    It seems that working together is the magical element in humans'history..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. New PhaistosOctober 7, 2025 at 1:11 PM

      Couldn't agree more! Literally the whole reason we rose above other animals is our ability to cooperate at a large scale. And I think we can even do better than athat.

      Delete

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