On: There are already 16,000 satellites in Earth’s orbit. How will we manage the...

July 21, 2026

Sixteen thousand satellites. And the promise of a hundred thousand more. It is a number that expands the mind, like looking at a map of a city that has no end, only more districts, more avenues, more nameless alleys stretching into the fog. Each satellite, a tiny, glittering point, a silent sentinel, a mirror shard reflecting a distant sun.

We speak of managing them, as if they were a deck of cards to be shuffled, or pieces on a chessboard. But these are not static objects; they are trajectories, velocities, invisible threads weaving a complex, ever-changing tapestry around our world. The problem is not merely one of number, but of interaction, of the infinite possibilities of collision, of the delicate balance of a cosmic ballet performed by blind dancers.

The image of a repair workshop for satellites, a mechanic with a wrench floating among the stars, is a delightful absurdity. It highlights the fundamental difference between the terrestrial and the celestial. On Earth, we build, we break, we mend. In orbit, we launch, we abandon, we accumulate. Each defunct satellite becomes a ghost, a fragment of a past intention, circling endlessly, a piece of debris in a growing ring of forgotten dreams.

Perhaps the solution lies not in managing the individual pieces, but in understanding the system itself. What if the true city is not the one we build on the ground, but the one we have inadvertently constructed in the sky? A city of light and shadow, of signals and silence, a vast, invisible architecture that dictates the rhythm of our lives. And like any city, it will have its avenues, its plazas, its slums of discarded metal. The question is, can we still find the pattern in the chaos, or will it become a labyrinth from which no signal can escape?