So I just watched Virgin Orbit's promo for their plane-launched rocket-to-orbit service and something struck me SpaceX, Virgin, and many others are getting (or counting on) tons of revenue from commercial launch customers ... why are so many people putting objects in orbit?
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Like, once we have a certain amount of satellites, isn't that enough? At some point, aren't we good there? We reach an overwhelming capacity for the various services satellites can provide (comms relays and earth observation, mainly) and then we don't need any more, right?
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Replying to @random_eddie
joking or srs? there is infinite demand for everything, throttled only by cost how many more board games do you need? how many more poker chips? how many uploaded pictures of poker chips? if pix cost $20 each to view, you'd be happy with 5 since they're $0, you view tons
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Replying to @MorlockP
I actually need drastically fewer board games and poker chips and am looking forward to getting rid of a great majority of my collection As to the main point, though - surely diminishing marginal returns plays a factor here somewhere, handwave handwave
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Replying to @random_eddie
absolutely ti does we will not diassemble the entire planet to make sattelites we will hit some sort of balance ...but I think that in terms of "what percent of FINAL mass in orbit is in orbit today?" the answer is 0.00000001%
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Replying to @MorlockP
>we will not diassemble the entire planet to make sattelites well, maybe YOU won'tpic.twitter.com/Hgy3yHnhpJ
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Replying to @random_eddie @MorlockP
you can't disassemble the entire planet to make satellites, what would the satellites orbit around
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Replying to @ded_ruckus @MorlockP
the barycenter of the satellites themselves the gravitational echo of the planet-that-was orbital acolytes circling the empty altar from which they came and even yet cannot escape
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Replying to @random_eddie @MorlockP
the orbital mechanics would be fascinating
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tagging in to say "Eddie is right re barycenters" in fact, even right now, the moon does not orbit around the center of the earth - both the earth and the moon orbit around the center-of-mass (which is inside the Earth, but kinda just barely - like 1,000 miles below the surface)
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Replying to @MorlockP @random_eddie
huh, didn't know it was that shallow
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