CubeSats and Huge Amounts of Un-Trackable Space Junk

If the speed is different, it's not in the same orbit. It would either be in a circular orbit that is at a different radius, or it would be in a non-circular orbit that would only intersect in two places at the most.

In the latter case it would inevitably hit something. Its relative position would shift on each orbit.

If it failed during insertion like I suggested then it could end up in that situation.

I've always wondered how the orbits of the planets and the rest of the solar system happened. We seem to have to work very hard to get objects into a stable orbit in space.

Then I learned a bit about chaos theory. It is likely the orbits of planets and moons are what would be considered "attractors". Otherwise it would seem to be an amazing coincidence that we see so many objects in orbit.

Yes, but there are also an infinite number of other possibilities. Also, inevitable is not the same thing as any time soon.

I'm not certain, but I don't think that there's anything painted on a satellite. The problem is coefficient of thermal expansion matching. If a surface was painted and exposed to a repeating -200C to +200C temperature cycle, any difference in thermal expansion characteristics between the base metal and the paint would cause the paint to flake off. Therefore, methinks there may be plated, etched, sputtered, laminated, or stamped surfaces, but not painted. There's plenty of thin metal foil used on satellites and the "paint chip" might have been a "metal chip".

The stuff that is making up the planets started off as a rotating disk of dust. The orbiting motion was already there, but it had to collect into lumps that grow bigger and bigger due to gravity and the resulting collisions.

When something is not stable, we do not get to see it after 4.5 billion years of evolution of the solar system. We ourselves are only there for a fraction of that time and we get to observe it. When the earth would not be in a stable orbit suitable for us to live on, we would not be there to observe it and calling it highly unlikely.

It is similar to winning a lottery: the chances of winning a lottery are very low when you look at everyone, but for the winner that doesn't matter.

Two objects in two different orbits that intersect at two places still have a very low chance of hitting eachother! They only hit when they are at the intersection at the same time. Objects such as satellites are very very small relative to the length of the orbit. Remember that the geostationary orbit is over 260.000km in length, and a satellite may occupy about a 10m stretch of that, or about 0.000004%

The probability of both satellites being in the same spot of two orbits at geostationary altitude is like 1 : 3*10^-15

I would not call that "inevitably".

Sure, although the shuttle's external tank was painted white for the first 2 or 3 launches, then they realized there was no reason to add a ton of paint to something that was discarded.

And anyway the fleck was a fraction of a millimeter and made a nice little crater in the window. Solar panels would scatter a lot of metal or glass particles.

Like how a sheet of newspaper deflects a 155mm shell?

Just because the orbits are intersecting, a collision isn't inevitable. The orbits may be synchronous (and out of phase).

But the orbits continue into the indefinite future... one scenario for space battle is a machine-gun fired to put pellets into an intersecting orbit to some (stationary) adversary. Eventually all the rounds will hit something. Might take a few decades...

When the "stationary" object is something actively kept in a geostationary orbit and the pellets are just fired and left, the orbits will not remain intersecting for too long, as the pellet orbit is pertubed by sun and moon gravitational forces (and some irregularities in the earth gravitational field as well). The stationary object's orbit is pertubed is as well, but this is counteracted by spending station-keeping fuel.

No they won't. If the orbits are synchronous, the particles will never collide. It's probably pretty difficult to do with small satellites, however.

Geostationary orbits are not stable. Both the inclination and the mean motion will change slowly over time. Station-keeping fuel is used to keep the satellite at near-zero inclination and at the same longitude.

This will not happen to the pellets, so the two orbits will not remain synchronous. However, they will not remain intersecting either.

Goesync is fast-moving but they're all going the same way. A collision between participants is most likely to result in dents rather than fragmentation

In the lower orbits speeds are greater, and paths cross or almost cross so the probability of encountering something solid with high relative speed is much increased.

in low orbit it may be more like the room full of mousetraps

eg:

on the other hand balls that don't have the horizontal speed to stay aloft stop participating.

Not all are, no. The Earth's gravity isn't uniform so geo-sync satellites tend to drift into a well over the S. Atlantic. The issue wasn't geo-sync orbits, though. It was about two satellites in intersecting orbits. The satellites do not necessarily collide eventually. Intersecting orbits may be synchronous.

Not all satellites are in geo-sync orbits. See above.

I think it was clear that the risk of collisions is there for low orbits and that it was now extrapolated to geostationary (thus geosynchronous) orbits. See the (stationary) remark in the above paragraphs.

When the adversary is stationary it is not in a stable orbit. The gravity well affects the mean motion and causes the satellites to drift to a (two) fixed locations, but the inclination change is independent from that. Station-keeping is always necessary, and when it is not done the orbit will change. Thus a stationary satellite and some random junk put into an intersecting orbit will not remain synchronous.

I don't think that follows.

Adversary? If it's stationary, it's not in orbit. You're missing the whole point.

Ah, it was a joke. Got it. Goodbye! Let's continue only a serious discussion.