I thought Starlink was really cool when I first heard about it. I know people that use it because it's the best Internet available to them. But I'm not sure if the amount of space waste they are creating is worth it.
this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
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This stuff falls back into the atmosphere and burns up quite rapidly since it's in extremely low orbit.
Even if 100% of the stuff burns up, it's a lot of energy and materials that needs to be constantly replaced. Seems like a lot of maintenance to keep the array operating long-term.
Also vaporizing metals being added to the upper atmosphere isn’t exactly great.
Isn't great how? Like in a going to make global warming-worse way or going to give us cancer way?
There are several effects this could have on Earth and the atmosphere. The presence of these particles could affect how water freezes into ice in the stratosphere, and influence the size of stratospheric aerosol particles. They could also induce salt deposition on aerosol particles, and alter the stratospheric refraction of light.
These may seem like subtle changes, but they could have unintended consequences that we really ought to investigate, the researchers say.
Few months ago an article was published about how the rockets was warming the upper atmosphere and it was bad for it.
You make a good point there for sure. The lower the orbit, the faster the return and burn up, but the lower the latency as well. That's why usual satellite internet sucks so badly. Those satellites are in geostationary orbit and light takes 0.7 seconds to get there and back.
This is what scares me the most. At a certain point, we'll just have to go "whoops, our planet has no more resources to leech", and we'll be permanently stuck in stone age
Data showing it's happening within a day.
It’s hard to put a value on access to high speed internet, because it’s such a force multiplier for productivity, art, and culture.
Holy shit. How does that failure rate compare with other organizations? It's a major cost to lose a satellite those things aren't cheap in the slightest.
They're always in the last place you look!
Starlink is the world's largest satellite company and boasts a network of about 5,000 low-Earth orbit satellites.
So I see two things here right off the bat. First, a loss of >= 20% seems really high. Aside from the financial implications and service impacts, we have environmental concerns of atmospheric pollution caused by launches and satellite debris. And of course, SoaceX will be permitted to externalize those costs by not having to pay for any of the effects caused or for cleanup. That will be on the taxpayers and the global population to absorb, so that SpaceX can continue to print money with no responsibility.
Title is sensationalist bs. People obsessed with elmo again.
Although it would be cool to know how normal is to lose units to the atmosphere.