from Take Me To Your Leader, Neil DeGrasse Tyson
If Bill Bryson were an astrophysicist, he’d be Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
Overall, Take Me To Your Leader might be a bit too basic for a lot of readers, but this particular gem stood out for me:
“On October 3, 1957, the number of artificial satellites orbiting Earth was zero. … That number has grown steadily over the decades, and exponentially in recent years, rising through 15,000, most for commercial use. that number includes at least 3,000 defunct satellites. But that’s ot all. The full orbital inventory includes rocket and satellite debris, comprised of booster stages, lost wrenches, purposefully destroyed satellite parts, and paint chips, which vastly outnumber the satellites themselves. … The estimated population of particles bigger than a marble is approximately 500,000. The number larger than a pinhead exceeds 100 million. All moving at 18,000 miles per hour. / What could go wrong? / At those speeds, even pinhead-sized debris carries one hundred times the kinetic energy of an AR-15 rifle bullet. … Earth’s orbital space has become a lethal shooting gallery not only to our own satellites but to any Aliens who might want to visit, leaving them to question our wisdom and foresight as a space-ambitious culture.” (p60-1)
So Musk et al escaping to Mars, once they’ve completely wrecked Earth, is unlikely for yet another reason: they’d be killed by their own irresponsibly tossed garbage en route. Perfect.
(I still rank ‘A couple dozen rich white men surviving together in a ship the relative size of an elevator for nine months?’ to be the first reason for failure. Surviving once they get there without their legions of servants, let alone the expert biologists etc. required for the provision of stuff like food and water, the second.)
