Time (April 16)
There’s a “looming risk of too many satellites and debris in space.” Current counts indicate there are over 525,000 objects larger than 1 cm and over 100 million of all sizes. “That’s a huge problem, since even such small bits of scrap can carry the bang of a bullet when they’re traveling at orbital speed.” And each collision generates more “more debris clouds, which would strike still more spacecraft, leading to a chain reaction known as the Kessler syndrome that could potentially wipe out whole flocks of spacecraft in that orbital band.”
Tags: 100 million, Chain reaction, Collision, Debris, Debris clouds, Kessler syndrome, Looming, Objects, Orbital speed, Risk, Satellites, Scrap, Space, Spacecraft
The Week (April 2)
By any measure, Uber has been having a terrible year. Some have posited it could threaten the tech bubble. “Uber is by far the most valuable of the 187 ‘unicorn’ startups valued at $1 billion or more, despite losing at least $1.2 billion in the first half of 2016.” But Uber is unlikely to spark a chain reaction. “The tech industry’s funding sources are more diversified than they were in the original dot-com bubble, and the definition of what makes a ‘technology company’ is also much broader. Odds are, investors will see Uber’s flaws as an isolated case of bad corporate governance, not evidence that they shouldn’t be investing in startups.”
Tags: Chain reaction, Corporate governance, Diversified, Dot-com bubble, Funding, Investor, Isolated case, Startups, Tech bubble, Terrible, Uber, Unicorns
