Context: Will Musk’s Starlink satellites lead to Kessler syndrome?
An eventual Kessler syndrome occurring is surely a matter of entropy and statistical inevitability, regardless that even Low Earth Orbit space is genuinely “big”.
That is – there are exponentially many more disordered system states than ordered ones and so the accumulation of more components and more complex configurations does not merely hyper-inflate the dimensionality of the system, it almost inevitably predisposes it to the eventual deterioration or catastrophic disassembly into one (or inordinately many) of those disordered states.
My suggestion: require anyone who’s going to put something into LEO to provide a comprehensive plan and business model around the recovery and or sweeping of clutter.
If removing space junk is a significant technical challenge, perhaps we should be seeking to solve the problem before endlessly slinging more electromechanical devices into orbit.
A naive, superficial interpretation on my behalf? Perhaps, but these problems have a tendency to metamorphose into major issues when apposite regulation and responsibility is not in place.
This class of abrogated responsibility is a common thread of technological history: costs are offset and displaced to other times and places.
Daedelus Kite 