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What would be the number of reentries in the near future? 5-20 satellites daily? At first glance, it seems negligible. On the hand, given the intentional nature if disposable low-orbit, 20 more than ideal.
Why do you consider the ideal point for this question absolute 0 zero reentries rather than the minimal number of reentries that don’t cause damage to the atmosphere?
Waste of fucking money. The X that fall per year is nothing compared to the millions of tons of other pollution.
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100 tons of whatever enter the Earth every single day. Are you freaking out about that?
Those are rocks, which are not made from the same stuff as satellites. (Also, the article says it's 44 tons, and other sources suggest around 50 at most.) In any case, I don't think anyone here is "freaking out", I just think this issue merits investigation.
> However, the rapidly increasing numbers of launches to low Earth orbit now threaten to increase the levels of space junk reentering the atmosphere. Isn't it not space junk if it is burning up in the atmosphere? Kinda conflating two different concerns here that are somewhat mutually exclusive.
It's space junk and then it enters the atmosphere and burns up, I don't think it's too hard to figure out.
Is a Starlink sat that reaches EOL and sets itself on trajectory for rapid de-orbit ever junk by such a definition?
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Why do you consider the ideal point for this question absolute 0 zero reentries rather than the minimal number of reentries that don’t cause damage to the atmosphere?
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Please consider that I’m very familiar with natural and artificial meteor falls if you choose to respond
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those are rocks, which are not made from the same stuff as satellites. (Also, the article says it's 44 tons, and other sources suggest around 50 at most.) In any case, I don't think anyone here is "freaking out", I just think this issue merits investigation.
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Good catch. I doubt it's even a rounding error right now, but with the space market undergoing a rather rapid growth (good thing!), it's a good time to start tracking this and hopefully address before it turns into a problem.
>hopefully address before it turns into a problem. Ron Howard's voice "They didn't." But in all seriousness, there will be zero stomach for limiting launches for the ozone layer. I'm calling it now. Group 1 won't believe it's a problem. Group 2 will say it's just lefty elitists trying to ruin the economy. Group 3 will say there's no such thing as satellites. Check back in 40 years. I bet I'm right.
Not just regarding climate, virtually all of science. Science itself is the target. The overlap between climate change denial and COVID denial (for instance) is documented: same think tanks, same commentators. [2]
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It's space junk and then it enters the atmosphere and burns up, I don't think it's too hard to figure out.
If it turns out the junk truly disintegrates without any significant affect to the atmosphere then GP is saying that it’s not actually a problem and not actually “junk”. Space junk usually refers to stuff junking up things in the same way a rusted out sedan ruins a yard. If the sedan disappeared it wouldn’t really be considered junk. If the sedan disappeared but left behind a puddle of poison the label would still ap…
Satellites have many chlorinated and florinated chemicals, so being vaporized means introducing large volumes to the upper atmosphere where they can catalyze the destruction of ozone molecules. I'd be interested how the volume compares to other sources of atmospheric halogens. They could hardly match the quantity of refrigerant gases released, but being deposited directly in the upper atmosphere may make them more po…
Maybe one or two tons of vaguely related chemicals are making their way into the atmosphere in the form of deorbited satellite materials and there's no 1:1 guarantee they're having anything like similar effects.
So it's a number measured in parts per million of the problem we were having in the 80s.