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While I understand your line of thinking, I think is bizarre that short life span is seen as good thing in a world, where we should probably be careful with how

While I understand your line of thinking, I think is bizarre that short life span is seen as good thing in a world, where we should probably be careful with how we use every single resource for the sake of the environment and future generations.

AYBABTME 5y ago
If you think about it, the satellites disintegrate in the atmosphere, reseeding the planet with whatever elements they're made of. Same as how many elements on Earth comes from asteroids!
- joakleaf 5y ago
  I understand you, but I suspect that scattering atoms of e.g. rare earth metals across the planet makes them difficult to reuse. Would probably be much easier, if the materials stay together.
  - kiba 5y ago
    It's better to burn up and not kill somebody upon impact.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    Keep in mind that rare earth materials aren’t necessarily rare in quantity, just in distribution.
- adwn 5y ago
  Trace amounts of any element, whether in soil, water, or air, are basically useless, because they can't be mined economically. Even rare and valuable elements like platinum are only mined where they've been concentrated by geological processes over millions or billions of years. Sometimes you'll see bold claims about the abundance of certain elements backed by the fact that they exist in ppm or even ppb [1] concentrations in Earth's crust, conveniently ignoring the infeasibility of processing teratonnes of material (and completely destroying huge parts of Earth's surface area). [1] ppm/ppb = parts per million/billion
inglor_cz 5y ago
This is a complex question. Tens of thousands of satellites looks like a huge constellation, but compared to the worldwide fleet of cars, bicycles, or even laptops, their total resource footprint isn't very big. Their ratio of users to machines is incredibly high. And they are designed to burn up completely, so they do not end up in a landfill somewhere. Fast improvements of worldwide Internet coverage may well be net positive for the environment and future generations. For example, protection of animals in national parks of Africa against poaching may become easier / more efficient.
thatjoeoverthr 5y ago
Sometimes a bizarre situation warrants a bizarre strategy. Satellites will sometimes break, and even Starlink itself as a business can go under. And, as the OP describes, they become obsolete by their nature as telecom hardware. It is severely expensive to remove a satellite from orbit. But a low altitude constellation is self cleaning. Starlink can go under entirely and the entire constellation will still come down in a reasonable timeframe.

AYBABTME 5y ago

If you think about it, the satellites disintegrate in the atmosphere, reseeding the planet with whatever elements they're made of. Same as how many elements on Earth comes from asteroids!

joakleaf 5y ago
I understand you, but I suspect that scattering atoms of e.g. rare earth metals across the planet makes them difficult to reuse. Would probably be much easier, if the materials stay together.
- kiba 5y ago
  It's better to burn up and not kill somebody upon impact.
- ericmay 5y ago
  Keep in mind that rare earth materials aren’t necessarily rare in quantity, just in distribution.
adwn 5y ago
Trace amounts of any element, whether in soil, water, or air, are basically useless, because they can't be mined economically. Even rare and valuable elements like platinum are only mined where they've been concentrated by geological processes over millions or billions of years. Sometimes you'll see bold claims about the abundance of certain elements backed by the fact that they exist in ppm or even ppb [1] concentrations in Earth's crust, conveniently ignoring the infeasibility of processing teratonnes of material (and completely destroying huge parts of Earth's surface area). [1] ppm/ppb = parts per million/billion

inglor_cz 5y ago

This is a complex question. Tens of thousands of satellites looks like a huge constellation, but compared to the worldwide fleet of cars, bicycles, or even laptops, their total resource footprint isn't very big. Their ratio of users to machines is incredibly high. And they are designed to burn up completely, so they do not end up in a landfill somewhere. Fast improvements of worldwide Internet coverage may well be net positive for the environment and future generations. For example, protection of animals in national parks of Africa against poaching may become easier / more efficient.

thatjoeoverthr 5y ago

Sometimes a bizarre situation warrants a bizarre strategy. Satellites will sometimes break, and even Starlink itself as a business can go under. And, as the OP describes, they become obsolete by their nature as telecom hardware. It is severely expensive to remove a satellite from orbit. But a low altitude constellation is self cleaning. Starlink can go under entirely and the entire constellation will still come down in a reasonable timeframe.