2.5 Days: On Clocks, Mirrors, and the Accountability in Space We Can No Longer See

We have always used clocks to manage what frightens us.

Not to measure time — time does not need measuring. But to make the uncontrollable feel navigable, to turn the open horizon of consequence into something with a number attached, a threshold we can act on before it runs out.

That is the estimated waiting time, under a no-manoeuvre scenario, before low Earth orbit would be expected to produce a potential catastrophic collision between tracked objects. Not a prophecy. Not a certainty. A statistical warning. As of 4 May 2026, that figure has fallen to 2.5 days — down from 164 days in 2018, before the megaconstellation era took hold. And even this figure is partial: the CRASH Clock does not include non-trackable objects. The number did not change because the physics changed. It changed because we filled the lanes.

Researchers call it the CRASH Clock — Collision Realization and Significant Harm. It is a powerful new indicator. It makes a diffuse, slow-moving crisis feel immediate. But I have been thinking about what the clock shows beyond the number it produces. 

And what it reflects back is a civilisation that has built systems so complex, so fast, and so automated, that it can no longer fully answer for them.

Click here to read the full article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/25-days-clocks-mirrors-accountability-space-we-can-mastracci-sanchez-5pgof/?trackingId=Ci7aWPPKQfKEyOxCGISmcw%3D%3D