1w ago

Elon Musk's Satellites Now Constantly Falling Out of the Sky

futurism.com

12 comments

Kessler Syndrome at low earth orbit has always been a stupid argument since it’s a self-correcting problem. But the atmospheric destruction due to aerosolizing the satellites on reentry is concerning and should be reviewed quickly.
- Kessler Syndrome at low earth orbit has always been a stupid argument since it’s a self-correcting problem.
  Sure it's self correcting, but I could see it still being a problem.
  Like let's say between the 50 thousand predicted satellites we get a full blown Kessler Syndrome going in low Earth orbit. Sure most of the debris would burn up sooner than the satellites, being light and having (proportionally) more surface area. However some of it is gonna get kicked into elliptical orbits causing the debris to interact with the atmosphere less for a lot of it's orbit. It seems to me that if a LEO Kessler occurred it could make any launches much riskier for years while we wait for the debris to burn up. Not the end of the world to be sure, but rather inconvenient.
  
  Indeed, the situation would be a problem for years, but really that’s it. It’s a somewhat light punishment for an absolutely crazy amount of activity in LEO.
  Obviously if we had a similar issue in Geostationary orbit, that could permanently stunt humanity’s space activities.
"It's just a little aluminum oxide destroying the ozone layer, it's ok, it's ok."
- "all the aerosolized metals will reflect more UV, cooling the earth. If anything I'm a hero for solving global warming. You're welcome"
  
  PSA aluminum oxide is a catalyst that breaks down ozone.
Interesting use of pronouns. When it's launching, owning and operating the satellite, it's "he" or "they", for example "Starlink launches X thousand satellites", but when it comes to the consequences, it's "us": "we are damaging our atmosphere" etc.
No bitch, HE is destroying our planet, HE is launching tons of junk into the sky and then indiscriminately letting it pollute the air we breathe. THEY are taking all the profits while WE take all the risk.
Every bit of news about this clown and his companies and their products sounds so grotesque, I just have to ask: is this average for modern satellites, or worse, and if, how much?
- Hate to break it to you but Starlink literally is average for modern satellites. Just about 2/3rds of all active satellites are Starlink. There's thousands of them.
Also, all of these satellites need to be replaced if starlink is supposed to keep functioning. Costs will need to be placed on either the customer or the taxpayer.

12 comments