Worst part of updating my talk: looking up how fucking many more Starlink satellites there were than last time I gave a version of this talk. 200 more than a month ago. Fuck.
There are now 6,209 Starlinks in orbit, fully 62% of the 10,009 active satellites in orbit.
All of these "fully demisable" Starlinks are planned to burn up and deposit their metal in Earth's atmosphere. I just saw multiple 100-pound pieces of another SpaceX "fully demisable" rocket, so I'm sure it'll be just fine.
In case it's not clear, both of these options are bad.
"Fully demisable" = 29 tons of aluminum per day in the stratosphere/mesosphere just from reentering Starlink sats, ignoring all the rocket bodies required to resupply the constantly-replaced megaconstellation.
And I hope it's obvious why 100 pound pieces of junk dropping from orbit every hour would probably be bad. So hopefully Starlink engineering is better than Crew Dragon trunk engineering?
This is such an incredibly bad situation...
How many Starlink satellites would have to break up in the upper atmosphere to make a measurable affect on global warming?
@1dalm @sundogplanets The problem here is not global warming, it is the potential damage to the #OzoneLayer. The metal particles from burnt-up #satellites could reactivate the human-made #chlorine that is still up there (and will remain there for decades) into a very effective #ozone killer . You don't need a lot of material for that.
When we managed to save the #OzoneLayer ~40 years ago, we did not have to think about thousands of satellites burning up in the atmosphere each year.
@dgfeist @1dalm @sundogplanets
So how do we talk to people who swear by technology and think starlink is the best thing since sliced bread.
If a person was to object to technology as it takes jobs away, they are branded luddites, however in the context of this discussion that concern would be backed by science studies and backed by genuine environmental concerns.
So we are not fearing tech as it may take our jobs away, we are simply trying to highlight something where the solution is to change the way we do things and find a solution to space junk generally.
So how can we discuss this, esp with non science people, even though, again in the context of the science, the idea of reactions is covered at Secondary level education at least.
@sundogplanets @dgfeist @1dalm
I am at a loss too on this. II find talking to other science minded people far more productive and easier.
