SpaceX vaporizes 260 Starlink satellites in six months using Earth's atmosphere

Comments

• Bieren@lemmy.today ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  This is how they were designed out of the gate. This isn’t a new problem. This was their solution from day 1.

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• FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  So, we're breathing in hundreds of thousands of tons of vaporized e-waste pretty much constantly?

  Fucking great, thanks.

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  • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    Not just us! Also the dolphins and terns. Everything else is okay tho

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    • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io ⁨48⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      Well, as long as we don't take a tern for the worse.

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  • BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    If it makes you feel any better; Starlink is also destroying the ozone layer

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• Sludgehammer@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Retrieving the deorbited satellites — which weigh roughly 573 to 650 pounds (260 to 295 kg) for first-generation units and 1,764 to 2,756 pounds (800 to 1,250 kg) for second-generation units — is technically impractical and financially unviable, according to the company. Hence, the incineration technique.

  So that’s 148,980 to 325,000 kilograms (or 148.98 to 325 tons) of electronics burned by single corporation in half a year.

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  • mushroommunk@lemmy.today ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    They’ve also been shown to have a not insignificant impact on the ozone. We’re so fucked

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    • Fuckswearwords@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Does puncturing through our upper atmosphere during escape have any non insignificant effects? I’ve seen some of those videos of launches at night (when the solar wind lights up everything) and it sure looks like we are burning holes in our ozone layer when we do that. Just asking you cause you seem somewhat knowledgeable.

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  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Not just incinerated, incinerate red in the upper atmosphere while directly heating it.

    They burn up from friction, it’s not just the flames the whole process is heating the planet and who knows how many things it’s fucking up we haven’t noticed before.

    But the most important bit is if they don’t know how to get them down, they need to stop sending them up.

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    • pennomi@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      There’s no way burning satellites are putting enough energy into the atmosphere to heat it up. They cause other problems like ozone degradation and serious aerosol pollution.

      Rockets on the other hand put a lot of greenhouse gasses high up in the atmosphere, including incredibly potent greenhouse gasses like water vapor. These launches account for a meaningful percentage of all emissions.

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  • Rhaedas@fedia.io ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That's a lot of electronics waste. Estimates for 2025 e-waste into landfills was around 65 million tons, and it continues to rise each year. It's not an either/or, we can complain about both, but the scale difference makes the first seem a bit less dramatic. We should do something about our throwaway society.

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    • Revolver1864@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I work in IT and am resposible for e-recycle runs. I take the laptops home, re install windows, and give them away free to any poor person i come across.

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  • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I imagine most of that weight isn’t the actual electronics, but the housing.

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    • Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      The housing isn’t great to be burning either.

      …colorado.edu/…/within-15-years-plummeting-satell…

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• CorrectAlias@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I’m so glad the FCC keeps giving them money for rural broadband grants instead of giving more to local PUDs. It warms my soul to know that tons of electronics are getting unevenly burned in our atmosphere.

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• CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  • Don’t you just love the smell of space junk?

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• corbindallas@fedinsfw.app ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Don’t look up

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