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As a point of comparison, the total amount of nickel in the Earth's oceans is approximately 1 billion tons.

HlessClaudesman 3y ago
OK thats a big number, but we are talking about spreading heavy elements around the atmosphere, some portion of which will end up in the soil, then in us. Let's examine a reductio ad absurdum of a medium term future where we have 1000x more space vehicles all taking space dumps into the atmosphere. Would that be best practice? Is there a better norm we could establish today?
- CaptArmchair 3y ago
  If de-orbiting is your concern, then I would suggest taking a step back and considering the impact on our atmosphere of increasing the number of launches. This isn't a theoretical question. There's growing awareness among researchers that there's a need to research how the gasses and particles produced by rocket launches at scale could have an impact on the atmosphere. https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2023/rocket-pollution/ https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2023/rocket-polluti...
  - HlessClaudesman 3y ago
    Thanks for the link. Nice use of web tech to illustrate an issue.
  - huppeldepup 3y ago
    Scrolling on that link doesn’t work on FF, Safari or Brave on iOS.
    - eythian 3y ago
      Are you scrolling up? That caught me out for a moment.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      I have JS disabled so I can scroll, but the page is long and blank. There's some text if I view source at least.
- bazzargh 3y ago
  This is 2 1/2 tons, not all of it nickel. Approximately 48.5 tons of meteorites hit the earth every day https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/meteors-meteorites/ https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/meteors-meteorites/ and those are around 1-1.8% nickel https://sites.wustl.edu/meteoritesite/items/metal-iron-nickel/#:~:text=all%20chondrites%20have%20bulk%20(whole%2Drock)%20concentrations%20of%20nickel%20of%201.0%2D1.8%25 https://sites.wustl.edu/meteoritesite/items/metal-iron-nicke... So, there's about 1/2 a ton of nickel falling into the atmosphere every day anyway, 180 tons a year, already in the ballpark of your thousand ships.

OK thats a big number, but we are talking about spreading heavy elements around the atmosphere, some portion of which will end up in the soil, then in us. Let's examine a reductio ad absurdum of a medium term future where we have 1000x more space vehicles all taking space dumps into the atmosphere. Would that be best practice? Is there a better norm we could establish today?

CaptArmchair 3y ago
If de-orbiting is your concern, then I would suggest taking a step back and considering the impact on our atmosphere of increasing the number of launches. This isn't a theoretical question. There's growing awareness among researchers that there's a need to research how the gasses and particles produced by rocket launches at scale could have an impact on the atmosphere. https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2023/rocket-pollution/ https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2023/rocket-polluti...
- HlessClaudesman 3y ago
  Thanks for the link. Nice use of web tech to illustrate an issue.
- huppeldepup 3y ago
  Scrolling on that link doesn’t work on FF, Safari or Brave on iOS.
  - eythian 3y ago
    Are you scrolling up? That caught me out for a moment.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    I have JS disabled so I can scroll, but the page is long and blank. There's some text if I view source at least.
bazzargh 3y ago
This is 2 1/2 tons, not all of it nickel. Approximately 48.5 tons of meteorites hit the earth every day https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/meteors-meteorites/ https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/meteors-meteorites/ and those are around 1-1.8% nickel https://sites.wustl.edu/meteoritesite/items/metal-iron-nickel/#:~:text=all%20chondrites%20have%20bulk%20(whole%2Drock)%20concentrations%20of%20nickel%20of%201.0%2D1.8%25 https://sites.wustl.edu/meteoritesite/items/metal-iron-nicke... So, there's about 1/2 a ton of nickel falling into the atmosphere every day anyway, 180 tons a year, already in the ballpark of your thousand ships.