We’ve already had the warning about the dangers of too many satellites in orbit. If you’ve seen the film Gravity you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t, watch it and wait for the inevitable. TV viewing might revert to terrestrial and as for sat nav in your car you might have to learn how to read a paper map! 😉

6 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

and as for sat nav in your car you might have to learn how to read a paper map! 😉

Ant of us who have served with ground forces in the military know how to read maps.

I started at a very early age.

When I was growing up in San Francisco at the age of about 10 I would go downtown to the Shell Oil Building and collect all the roadmaps they had in the stand in the lobby.  Remember the free road maps the oil companies had in their gas stations?

Later when I started hiking and camping with my dad I was introduced to topo maps.  When I joined the Marines I was already quite familiar with map reading.

I have quite a large selection of road maps, national forest maps, and topo maps in my car.

I have a Rand McNally road atlas of the United States which I use in conjunction with the GPS in my flight simulator while flying.

In my last two automobiles I had a GPS unit in the dash.  But I have also kept the paper maps in the pouch behind my seat.  I wouldn't be without them.

Some of us love maps the same way we love books.  And I have several hard bound world atlases on my bookshelf.

Noel

Space is a massive place.  Put 30,000 cars in Texas, at ground altitude, and chances are they won't hit each other (assuming they can use all square mileage and not just the roads).

Now add different altitudes in space, plus the coverage area much much bigger than Texas and it's not so much of a problem as people make it out to be.

6 minutes ago, birdguy said:

Ant of us who have served with ground forces in the military know how to read maps.

You don’t need to have served in the Armed Forces to be able to read a map. Anyone over 50 probably can as satnav is a fairly recent invention. I would write my route on paper and tape it to the dash so it’s easily readable.

1 minute ago, Greggy_D said:

Space is a massive place.  Put 30,000 cars in Texas, at ground altitude, and chances are they won't hit each other (assuming they can use all square mileage and not just the roads).

Now add different altitudes in space, plus the coverage area much much bigger than Texas and it's not so much of a problem as people make it out to be.

Space is a big place. I'm not sure the problem are the low earth orbit satellites Starlink and the like are launching, but the older and much larger ones that are out of control at higher orbits. These are the ones that aren't going to de-orbit on their own any time soon and the ones that will create massive debris clouds if/when they collide.

10 minutes ago, Greggy_D said:

Now add different altitudes in space, plus the coverage area much much bigger than Texas and it's not so much of a problem as people make it out to be.

Not today Greggy, but what about the future as thousands more are proposed now and lord knows how many as time goes on.

When the American continent was covered with billions of trees supporters of clear cutting said there were so many trees it wouldn't make a difference.  Today it does.

When they were barging garbage from New York City off shore in the Atlantic nobody ever thought there would ever be enough garbage dumped in the oceans to be noticeable.  Today we know different.

Spaced is huge.  But the area of space available for satellites is finite.  And the day will come when they run out of room.

Today 30,000 cars in Texas might be infinitesimal given the size of the state.  But tomorrow when it grows to 30 million and the day after tomorrow when it grows to 300 million you might be singing a different tune.

Too many people, especially those with financial and military stakes in space, tell us not to worry.  There is lots of room out there for more.  But with all the plans for thousands more satellites going up in the near future and probably even more in the distant future it would be prudent to start thinking about it and what solutions there might be now.  Of course when military plans and corporate profits are concerned a bad case of short sightedness always steps in.

It won't affect me since I have not that many years left before I become nothingness.  But I do have concerns for my great grandchildren.

Noel

31 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

You don’t need to have served in the Armed Forces to be able to read a map. Anyone over 50 probably can as satnav is a fairly recent invention. I would write my route on paper and tape it to the dash so it’s easily readable.

Ray, 30 years ago when I was the first sergeant of my Weather Flight and began to teach map reading to my troops you'd be surprised how many had no idea how to find a route between two cities, if they could even find the cities, on a road map let alone a route between two sets of coordinates on a topo map taking into consideration the terrain. 

And those of us who began flying during the days of Narco coffee grinders (if your aircraft even had one) had to navigate looking out the window and spotting landmarks on an aviation chart.

Why so many schoolkids cannot find Switzerland on a world map saddens me.

Noel

Edited January 27, 20215 yr by birdguy

Noel, much of it is common sense rather than an acquired skill. Find roads nearest to a straight line between departure and arrival. I accept that reading a map with contours may be need some training.

Parents should pass these skills onto their kids.

Miss Teen U.S.A. pageant 2007. A question posed to Miss South Carolina:

Aimee Teegarden: Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U. S. on a world map.  Why do you think this is?
Caitlin Upton: I personally believe that U. S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should—our education over here in the U. S. should help the U. S., uh, or, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq, and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.

And you think it's bad now? It's been that way for quite a while.

 

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Noel, much of it is common sense rather than an acquired skill. Find roads nearest to a straight line between departure and arrival. I accept that reading a map with contours may be need some training.

The problem with common sense is that it assumes there is a common baseline, and when it comes to reading maps and navigating, there are very different baselines. Someone can be great at reading the simplified local bus and subway route maps because they use those all day, but are terrible at reading a proper road map as they rarely ever do, for example. My family went on lots of road trips when I was younger, and I loved reading the maps and following along, and then expanded on that experience when I learned to fly and got into backcountry hiking and camping. On the other hand, I knew plenty of people growing up that rarely left the city, and when they did it was most likely on a bus or plane where they didn't need to think about route finding at all, and would be totally lost if asked to do so. I think it is very much an acquired skill that more people should have.

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

Spaced is huge.  But the area of space available for satellites is finite.  And the day will come when they run out of room.

Which is why satellites launched today, and for the past decade or two, must have a proper plan on how they will be disposed of so they don't become an issue. Then there are also projects like the ones I linked that are working on how to deal with the junk currently in orbit. So while it is a concern that should not be overlooked, it isn't being ignored.

A bigger issue with the Starlink satellites, and similar satellite constellations, is the visual pollution, so to speak, that is causing problems with ground based astronomy. However, they may have found ways to solve this.

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/details-spacex-starlink-visorsat/

29 minutes ago, goates said:

My family went on lots of road trips when I was younger, and I loved reading the maps and following along

Me too.

Noel

Edited January 27, 20215 yr by birdguy

Of course when it comes to navigating shopping malls there is quite a difference between men and women.

 

Noel

5 hours ago, birdguy said:

Of course when it comes to navigating shopping malls there is quite a difference between men and women.

 

Noel

But meanwhile when a men walks into an abandoned mall center in a sanbox game.....

I don't know, but I'm thinking that at the rate this planet is throwing things into space...somebody's gonna notice...