Even the space junk designed with disposal in mind is a polluting presence around Earth, a new study has found. Those chunks of rocket and space station and dead satellites that burn up on atmospheric reentry leave miniscule traces of metal lingering...
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. All these starlink satellites are ^just going to burn up on reentry. That’s like throwing tv’s into the bonfire and saying “don’t worry, they burn”
Every day multiple tons of micrometeoroids burn up on entry. So yeah there is a reason why no one really gave a shit when the occasional satellite burns up.
For the millionth time, artificial pollutants are not the same as natural ones. They create different chemical reactions that cause different things to happen to our environments. And just because something occurs regularly in nature does not mean it’s okay to add to it and expect everything to turn out the same. Forest fires occurring naturally doesn’t mean we are fine to tear down the rainforest. Volcanoes going off and putting carbon into the atmosphere doesn’t mean we have no affect on the environment when we put pollutants in the atmosphere. And just because meteorites burn up in the atmosphere doesn’t mean space junk we’ve thrown up there has no effect. I’m so sick of seeing this shit man.
The amount of pollution matters and I can think of a dozen human sources of the same types of pollution that should garner more attention. Oil spills, burning plastics and tires, slash and burn agriculture, illegal dumping, all the poisonous shit people threw in the landfill the list goes on and on. Articles like this that ignore the relative scale of things unintentionally shift peoples’ focus away from the most damaging sources of pollution toward less significant ones which makes it more likely that the main causes of pollution arent dealt with.
So is space junk burning up bad for the environment? Yeah technically. Should other sources be worried about more? Yes. One tanker ship burning dirt cheap high Sulfur fuel will fuck up the environment a lot more and theyre essentially unregulated. Theyre allowed to spew pollution equivalent to millions of cars and nothing is done about it.
Ahh, an organization that has no ability to enforce things decided to regulate? Sounds like the International Criminal Court and Russia/Israel/USA/China…
If you think space junk is a major contributor to that instead of every landfill on the planet I have some water front property in the desert to sell you.
If we think of the 8000 tons on orbit, how much fuel did it take to get that there? How many rockets did it take? How many rockets just got dumped in the ocean? How much hydrazine did those contain? How much support equipment is involved in producing those rockets? How much raw materials? What happens when exhaust gets injected into the upper atmosphere? Is it the same as car exhaust on the surface? What happens when you burn epoxy and carbon fiber up there? What happens in a RUD and thousands of pounds of rocket fuel gets released?
If you think the space industry improves our environment, I wonder if you could spare some room up your ass for my head too. It’s easier living in the dark, I’d like to give it a shot.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. All these starlink satellites are ^just going to burn up on reentry. That’s like throwing tv’s into the bonfire and saying “don’t worry, they burn”
Every day multiple tons of micrometeoroids burn up on entry. So yeah there is a reason why no one really gave a shit when the occasional satellite burns up.
For the millionth time, artificial pollutants are not the same as natural ones. They create different chemical reactions that cause different things to happen to our environments. And just because something occurs regularly in nature does not mean it’s okay to add to it and expect everything to turn out the same. Forest fires occurring naturally doesn’t mean we are fine to tear down the rainforest. Volcanoes going off and putting carbon into the atmosphere doesn’t mean we have no affect on the environment when we put pollutants in the atmosphere. And just because meteorites burn up in the atmosphere doesn’t mean space junk we’ve thrown up there has no effect. I’m so sick of seeing this shit man.
The amount of pollution matters and I can think of a dozen human sources of the same types of pollution that should garner more attention. Oil spills, burning plastics and tires, slash and burn agriculture, illegal dumping, all the poisonous shit people threw in the landfill the list goes on and on. Articles like this that ignore the relative scale of things unintentionally shift peoples’ focus away from the most damaging sources of pollution toward less significant ones which makes it more likely that the main causes of pollution arent dealt with.
So is space junk burning up bad for the environment? Yeah technically. Should other sources be worried about more? Yes. One tanker ship burning dirt cheap high Sulfur fuel will fuck up the environment a lot more and theyre essentially unregulated. Theyre allowed to spew pollution equivalent to millions of cars and nothing is done about it.
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Ahh, an organization that has no ability to enforce things decided to regulate? Sounds like the International Criminal Court and Russia/Israel/USA/China…
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Yeah you’re right about that. I’m just feeling frustrated and hopeless every time I see headlines like this man.
There could be meteors made of lead or mercury, natural doesn’t mean non-toxic.
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Me, staring in surprise.
How many of those micrometeoroids contain petrochemicals?
If you think space junk is a major contributor to that instead of every landfill on the planet I have some water front property in the desert to sell you.
If we think of the 8000 tons on orbit, how much fuel did it take to get that there? How many rockets did it take? How many rockets just got dumped in the ocean? How much hydrazine did those contain? How much support equipment is involved in producing those rockets? How much raw materials? What happens when exhaust gets injected into the upper atmosphere? Is it the same as car exhaust on the surface? What happens when you burn epoxy and carbon fiber up there? What happens in a RUD and thousands of pounds of rocket fuel gets released?
If you think the space industry improves our environment, I wonder if you could spare some room up your ass for my head too. It’s easier living in the dark, I’d like to give it a shot.
Your bonfire gets much hotter than mine.