orbital decay

An animated Gabbard diagram of objects in low Earth orbit from 1959 to 2021, showing altitude over time. It highlights major debris-generating events and how low-altitude debris decays out of orbit.

Isaac Arthur explains the orbital ring, a megastructure launch-assist system that could move bulk cargo cheaply to orbit and beyond. He compares it with space elevators and discusses power transmission.

Eager Space examines the practicality of putting data centers in orbit, walking through three scenarios with cost calculations and the launch cost reductions that would be required.

Scott Manley uses a realistically scaled Kerbal Space Program setup to show why dropping something into the Sun is far harder than it sounds. It demonstrates the need to cancel orbital velocity.

EEVblog's Dave Jones critiques Reflect Orbital's plan to sell sunlight to solar farms after dark using orbital mirrors. He walks through the numbers to show the idea does not work out.

SpaceX's own compilation of failed orbital booster landing attempts, set to sound, showing the crashes before landings succeeded.

Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback and Sorrows of Empire, lectures on parallels between the decline of the Roman and Soviet empires and the United States. He argues the US shows the same symptoms: overextension, corruption, and an inability to reform.

A 29-minute cinematic timelapse by melodysheep that journeys trillions of years into the future, covering the death of the sun, the end of stars, proton decay, black hole evaporation and the fate of the cosmos.

A DevGAMM talk by Jonathan Blow arguing that civilizations can lose technological capability and that software quality is already deteriorating. He discusses how knowledge fails to transfer between generations.

Dan Britt lectures on the history of climate, covering orbital cycles, ice ages and conditions millions of years ago. It frames current climate debate with deep-time context.

Scott Manley examines why SpaceX, Google and others are looking at orbital data centers. He walks through the economics, heat rejection and solar power arguments, with links to the Lumen/Starcloud and Google Suncatcher papers.

Scott Manley analyzes the idea of putting data centers in orbit, prompted by Lumen Orbit's funding. He examines the claimed advantage of constant solar power against launch cost, cooling and mass.

In her final days as ISS commander, Sunita Williams gives an extensive tour of the station's modules and research facilities, narrating the work done aboard.

A Capella Science parody of Ed Sheeran's Shape of You, rewritten about molecular bonding and orbitals and sung a cappella.

A three-minute minutephysics video on the orbital mechanics of why crashing into the Sun takes far more energy than leaving the solar system.

Kurzgesagt explains how accumulating space junk could trigger a collision cascade (Kessler syndrome) that makes launches too dangerous and traps humanity on Earth.

A minutephysics explainer showing that the Moon's path around the Sun is not a spiral but closer to a 12-sided polygon with curved corners. It argues the Moon arguably orbits the Sun rather than the Earth.

Bret Copeland, in an astronaut costume, gives an energetic talk on how the Space Shuttle landed from orbit, including reentry and the unpowered glide. It includes real-time landing footage with HUD and audio.

The full webcast of SpaceX's Falcon 1 Flight 4, the first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit, on 28 September 2008. It includes the crew's cheering and Elon Musk's statement afterward.

Scott Manley explains the thermal balance of spacecraft and how a satellite could be configured to radiate away the heat from datacenter-scale computing in space. His rough numbers suggest it is feasible.

Kurzgesagt explains the skyhook, a rotating cable with a counterweight that could catapult spacecraft from Earth orbit toward deep space. It covers why it would make space travel cheaper and more efficient.

An animation presenting a non-standard helical or vortex model of the solar system, in which the planets trail the Sun through space instead of orbiting in flat circles. The model is a non-conventional view that the author says differs from standard diagrams.

Thunderf00t critiques SpinLaunch, the startup that proposes flinging payloads to space with a giant centrifuge. He argues the physics and engineering do not hold up.

The complete six-stage album series Everywhere at the End of Time by The Caretaker, about 6.5 hours of music that depicts the progression of dementia through distorted, decaying old ballroom recordings.

Cory Doctorow's DEF CON 31 talk describes how platforms decay in a pattern he calls enshittification. He lays out a plan to stop it through antitrust, interoperability and fixing the law.

A short visualization from HotNets researchers of routing and latency over SpaceX's proposed Starlink constellation, based on its FCC filings. It shows orbital shells, link topology and how inter-satellite routes could beat terrestrial fiber on long distances.

Urban explorers break into the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to film the abandoned Soviet Buran space shuttles. The video shows the decaying orbiters and the dangerous trip to reach them.

The Slow Mo Guys film a TV and screens with a high-speed camera to show how displays build an image. The footage includes CRT-style scanning and how pixels light up over time.

Patrick Boyle examines SpaceX's planned IPO at a roughly $1.75 trillion valuation. He covers the merging of other Musk companies, orbital data center claims and the fast-track index rules that may help the listing.

Everyday Astronaut takes a tour of SpaceX's Starbase with Elon Musk as guide. Topics include the Raptor engines, launch escape systems, the heat shield and the first orbital test.

Joe Scott takes a serious look at space sunshades as a climate fix, asking how big they would need to be, what they would cost and whether they would work. He draws on Roger Angel's paper and launch options.

A CNN segment showing William Shatner emotionally describing his Blue Origin suborbital flight to Jeff Bezos right after landing.

SpaceX's September 2019 Starship update presentation, where Elon Musk describes the design and development of Starship and Super Heavy. It covers construction and plans for reusable orbital rockets.