Space

 WhoWhatWhy - Last year alone, more satellites were launched than during the first 70 years of the Space Age. The GAO predicts an additional 58,000 by 2030.  This concentration of satellites is affecting the Earth’s upper atmosphere  including: the mesosphere which protects from meteors, the magnetosphere which protects from solar wind, and the ionosphere which protects from radiation. It is also impacting the global environment and interfering with the scientific observation of space on several levels.

Then there is the Kessler syndrome, a scenario in which the upper atmosphere becomes too dense with the perfusion of orbital objects leading to cascading collisions which create an expanding debris field that, like a domino effect, becomes a wave of annihilation that destroys all the satellites around the globe.

The number of spacecraft launched annually has doubled every two years since 2015. The number of orbiting satellites is increasing faster than regulations can accommodate and nation-states are even blowing up defunct satellites without any global coordination or even a plan. 

So at this point, the amount of man-made space debris is in the millions, and will all be hurtling around the globe at 17,500 miles per hour, for decades. 

Another part of the calculus is the existing millions of natural micrometeoroids, already orbiting the Earth at similar speeds. Calculations show that a 10 centimeter fragment traveling 22,000 mph can have the force of 7 kilograms of TNT. 

These satellites are also vulnerable to hacking, which is critical because of how integral they have become to Earth and space infrastructure.  Finally, if the cascading collision of satellites (Kessler syndrome) occurs, it would eventually destroy all existing satellites — dramatically impacting our daily lives. It would end all space launches and space exploration for generations. 

And oh yeah… it could destabilize the Earth’s orbit.