What would happen if all orbiting satellites shut down at once?

Answer 1

A very interesting topic for speculation.

Here are a few results that I can think of:

-- If you use a little dish on the corner of your house for your TV, then your TV would all go dark.

-- The GPS in your car wouldn't work. Neither would the GPS in your cellphone, or in all the field operations

in Iraq and Afghanistan.

-- After a while, the cellphone, 3G and 4G systems would all start dropping, once the GPS reference signals

become unavailable to synchronize the 'simulcast' systems and their extensive frequency re-use.

-- The TV weatherman, as well as all the weather websites, would pretty much be out of business.

They could continue forecasting all they want, but without most of the data they need to assemble

their forecasts with, any forecast out past tomorrow afternoon would be pure guesswork.

-- There would be no live news reports from 'correspondents' on other continents. A lot of the

live news reporting just within the US would also go away.

-- All of the distribution of long-distance telephone, radio, and TV networks that has been

taken off of terrestrial microwave and gone to satellite links rather than fiber would go away.

-- Forget about all the point-of-sale VSAT networks linking the gas-station chains. Not only

couldn't they tell when was the last time you bought a quart of milk from their store, they

probably couldn't even verify your credit card.

-- Your Sirius/XM satellite radio in your car would shut down.

-- The US couldn't watch what's going at the nuclear plants in Iran, North Korea, Russia, etc.

-- When you go to check in at the airport for a flight, pick up a rental car, or check into a hotel,

none of those people could find any record of your reservation, or validate your credit card.

Those are the first few that I can think of right at the moment.