The material reuse intrigues me. De-orbiting satellites -- while necessary for well-discussed reasons -- seems wasteful. You spent umpteen million dollars get

The material reuse intrigues me. De-orbiting satellites -- while necessary for well-discussed reasons -- seems wasteful. You spent umpteen million dollars getting that mass into orbit, and you're just going to drop it? It's kind of like the plans to throw nuclear waste into the Sun, or more realistically into a deep ocean subduction zone -- isotopes that heavy or unstable are rare, do you know how much work it is to find them?