Small note: my (not fully confident) understanding is that a typical day still does not involve a launch to orbit. My cached number is something like 2 or 3 launches / week in the world; or ~100–150 days / year with a launch. This is the best cite I can find. Launches often bring multiple ‘objects’ (satellites) into orbit, which is why it can be true that the average number of objects launched into space each day can exceed 1. So maybe the claim that “humans launch 5 objects into space” is somewhat misleading, despite being true on average. (This is ignorable pedantry!)
Thanks so much for this! If this is pedantry, I am very pro pedantry :)
I think this makes my ‘Humans launch 5 objects into space’ section sufficiently dubious that I’ve removed it, but pasting here in the context of your comment:
Humans launch 5 objects into space.
It’s only in the last 8 years that the number of objects launched into space each day has exceeded 1.
To resolve the lack of clarity here, there are lots of launches that have many things on board, so we have fewer launches but many objects launched. Because averages aren’t always typical—and the modal number is zero.)
Thanks for writing this Rose, I love it.
Small note: my (not fully confident) understanding is that a typical day still does not involve a launch to orbit. My cached number is something like 2 or 3 launches / week in the world; or ~100–150 days / year with a launch. This is the best cite I can find. Launches often bring multiple ‘objects’ (satellites) into orbit, which is why it can be true that the average number of objects launched into space each day can exceed 1. So maybe the claim that “humans launch 5 objects into space” is somewhat misleading, despite being true on average. (This is ignorable pedantry!)
Thanks so much for this! If this is pedantry, I am very pro pedantry :)
I think this makes my ‘Humans launch 5 objects into space’ section sufficiently dubious that I’ve removed it, but pasting here in the context of your comment:
Humans launch 5 objects into space.
It’s only in the last 8 years that the number of objects launched into space each day has exceeded 1.
To resolve the lack of clarity here, there are lots of launches that have many things on board, so we have fewer launches but many objects launched. Because averages aren’t always typical—and the modal number is zero.)
Heads up that it’s still in the headline version—though I think as an average it’s fine and useful to include.
Thanks; I forgot about the headline version. I’ve now removed.