There was a time when “looking up” meant stars, clouds, and maybe the occasional airplane dragging a banner for a pizza place.

Now?

Now it’s satellites. Roughly 15,000 of them, as of January 2026. And about two-thirds belong to Starlink. Which feels a little like discovering that most of the fish in the ocean are owned by one company.

We’ve gone from “space, the final frontier” to “space, the world’s most crowded co-working space.”

Here’s the part that made me put down my coffee.

Because low Earth orbit is now basically rush hour on the Cross Bronx, satellites are constantly swerving around each other. SpaceX alone is performing collision-avoidance maneuvers every two minutes.

That’s not innovation. That’s cosmic bumper cars.

And if that choreography ever breaks, perhaps from a solar storm, a software glitch, or one bad Tuesday, the satellites lose their ability to dodge each other. Which means one crash becomes two, becomes ten, becomes a glittery debris apocalypse in the sky.

Lose one satellite and you lose them all.

This isn’t new thinking. Back in 1978, NASA researcher Donald Kessler warned that too many satellites could trigger a runaway chain reaction of collisions, eventually wrapping Earth in a belt of debris and cutting off access to space altogether.  this cheery scenario was called the Kessler Syndrome, which sounds like a Scandinavian film noir (which I tend to love) but is actually about humanity accidentally bricking its own orbit.

Fast-forward to now.

Princeton researchers created something called the CRASH Clock (Collision Realization And Significant Harm). It estimates how long we’d have before a catastrophic cascade if satellites suddenly couldn’t maneuver.

Current reading is at  5.5 days.

Less than a week.

In 2018 that clock sat at 164 days.

From five and a half months to less than one week.

That is not a gentle curve. That is a cliff.

Which brings me to my favorite question. So, what are the powers that be going to do about it?


Because historically, we humans have a pattern. We innovate first, regulate later, and panic somewhere in the middle. We build the plane while flying it. We roll out the tech, then write the rules in pencil, after the fact, while staring at the smoke.

I’m sure committees are forming. Panels are convening. White papers are being drafted. Somewhere, someone is PowerPointing very hard.

But in the meantime, the sky keeps filling up.

So what should we, the ordinary people, do?

No, I’m not suggesting we all build backyard bunkers or start communicating via carrier pigeon. Although, that could suffice.

But I am gently suggesting we might want to rethink our enthusiastic over-reliance on systems that live entirely in the clouds. Literal clouds. Space clouds.

Maybe this is your sign to:

Keep paper copies of important documents.
Write down phone numbers like it’s 1994.
Own at least one analog clock that does not require Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or a firmware update. (Bonus points if it’s a grandfather clock that ticks loudly and judges you.)
Remember how to navigate without GPS.
Store photos somewhere that doesn’t require a password reset email sent to a server orbiting Earth at 17,000 miles per hour.

This isn’t about doom. It’s about resilience.

There’s something quietly radical about having a physical calendar. About knowing your neighbor’s number by heart. About keeping a little redundancy in your life. Not because you’re paranoid but because you’re practical.

Psychologically speaking, we’ve outsourced enormous chunks of memory, navigation, timing, and connection to machines in space. That’s impressive. Also fragile.

We’re living in an era where a solar storm could interrupt your music, your maps, your meetings, your money, and your memories. All before lunch.

That feels like a moment worth noticing.

So yes, enjoy your smart devices. Love your cloud backups. Marvel at humanity’s ability to fling technology into orbit.

Just maybe also buy a notebook. And a wall clock. And keep one important thing in a drawer instead of a server.

Call it retro.

Call it grounding.

Call it psychological disaster preparedness with a touch of whimsy.

The sky is full.

And sometimes the most rebellious act is owning something that still works when the Wi-Fi doesn’t.