Will space always be available to us? The dangers of the Kessler effect

The quote "Poor Alexander wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer”, misattributed as it is, captures the spirit and the motivation of an ambitious man. As long as there are mountains to climb, and caves to splunk somebody will seek them out, right? Well with Earth well and conquered in the modern age, space has presented itself as the new frontier. Endless, distant galaxy, who really knows what lays out there? Maybe not in yours or my lifetime but eventually the audacious reaches of man will obtain it all. After all, we have all the time in the world, right? Wrong.

The Kessler effect is a hypothetical but not at all unlikely scenario proposed by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler. The premise is that with our current practices regarding low orbit satellites that need to be replaced often (with an average life time of 8 years) and with the defunct satellites hardly ever seeing any effort made to recover them that the amount of space pollution in our orbit will only increase over time. The scenario dictates a doomsday sequence where collisions between these objects accumulate producing an inescapable field of space debris. This hypothetical curtain of space garbage would make any future launch mission practically impossible without a nearly certain chance of bumping into something on the way out. The idea of a man, trapped within a prison made of his own hubris would be funny in an ironic way if the chance of this happening wasn’t all that real.

What can be done about it? We can’t get a cosmic broom to sweep the skies clear but we can change the way we create satellites. Over a pleasant steak dinner I shared with one Simon Gwozdz, I brought up this issue hoping to receive some of his expertise. From his insider position, he confirmed that this is a serious concern internally, the future of all space missions lay possibly in the balance.

We talked and he shared some solutions in the works, firstly satellites which would automatically re-enter the atmosphere after going defunct, burning up from the descent before they could ever pose a danger to anybody below. Although, the second option seemed more plausible - Suborbital satellites.  Since suborbital satellites don't have enough energy to overcome the acceleration due to gravity it means that slowly, over time, they will depend naturally on Earth. Typically lasting less than a year these satellites would present themselves as a cost effective option for missions seeking to be less long standing, having a significant effect on space pollution as these ones solve themselves.