4 ms·

Low Earth Orbit Satellites Cause Environmental Harm Regulators Didnt Prepare For

34 points by WarOnPrivacy 2y ago

Filligree 2y ago
What’s missing from this article: Any sense of proportion. It uses numbers that are large from any human perspective, but doesn’t say how they compare to the rest of civilisation, or nature.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  This is literally the second sentence of the article (emphasis mine): > Researchers at USC noted that at peak, 1,005 U.S. tons of aluminum will fall to Earth, releasing 397 U.S. tons of aluminum oxides per year to the atmosphere, an increase of 646% over natural levels.
  - panzagl 2y ago
    But it doesn't compare that to the total release in the atmosphere, say from other manmade sources. I want to be sympathetic to the arguments I think the article is trying to make, but its content is really just 'Numbers! Billionaires suck!'
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      There are almost no other man-made emissions of aluminum oxides on the high atmosphere. It's just those two.
      - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
        When WW3 starts we will all be able to enjoy the rage bait about ICBM pollution.
        marcosdumay 2y ago
        ICBMs themselves do not emit that kind of pollution (in any important amount). But nuclear explosions do.
        natch 2y ago
        Whoosh
  - timschmidt 2y ago
    Does "natural levels" include the outputs of the aluminum smelting industry?
  - Filligree 2y ago
    Yes, I imagine the natural level of aluminum falling into the atmosphere is pretty low. That doesn't say very much about what it'll do to the ozone layer. I'm actually amazed we get 50 tons from meteors and such already. But 400 tons of aluminum oxide, compared to the total size of the atmosphere, sounds to me like it should have effectively zero effect.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - natch 2y ago
    They neglected to put in other numbers though because the other numbers don’t fit their narrative. For instance, the total tonnage of atmospheric air which dwarfs their scare numbers by any measure. 5.15 x 10^15 tons is a way bigger number. Which if you do the math means these deorbiting satellites will be adding 0.0000000771 ppm to the atmosphere. You probably get exposed to 10,000 times more than that heating a leftover burrito in foil in the toaster oven. They also conveniently chose to share the much higher urban rate for Starlink service when conceding that it is useful in rural areas, trying to make it seem less appealing with their if you can afford it verbiage. It’s clear what’s going on here. Agenda driven “journalism” that hates on technology with a crafted narrative.
    - Filligree 2y ago
      The rest of the atmosphere isn't as important. But I mean, the ozone layer on its own is 3 billion tons...
  - lukeschlather 2y ago
    That doesn't give enough sense of proportion. The mass of the ozone layer is 3 billion tons. Maybe 397 tons of aluminum could be a problem, but it's a very small number in context.
anymouse123456 2y ago
"...it’s generally more economically and environmentally sound to prioritize the deployment of fiber..." Um. Wat? Cannot wait to hear the same author howling about environmental destruction as the most awful of the megacorps dig millions of miles of trenches to lay down fiber. Also, unlike our scumbag trad ISPs, who constantly return to the subsidy trough and provide nothing of value, consider that maybe the financial calculus has been done by the people putting their own, actual dollars in on this one. Finally, since the author is so concerned with the needs of the underprivileged, where's their outrage over the $14.4 BILLION dollars[0] that were wasted in a failed attempt to get the rural areas of the country connected? [0] https://www.fcc.gov/acp https://www.fcc.gov/acp
- cozzyd 2y ago
  Really it just probably makes sense to upgrade cellular networks with enough backhaul bandwidth. (And deploy cell towers to cover people who are currently not covered yet, though I imagine that's a fairly small fraction of people at this point). For truly isolated communities without roads and such, satellite probably remains the best option.
  - natch 2y ago
    FYI they misquoted the price for Starlink service. They used the city price which is higher. In the country Starlink makes it cheaper. So essentially city users who don’t really need Starlink are subsidizing the rural users, which is kind of awesome imho. Sad that journalists can’t get a level of nuance and accuracy about this kind of stuff, but they’re happy to misuse the wrong price to try to make a false dig against Starlink.
  - ElectronCharge 2y ago
    I’d like to see a map showing US cell coverage that offers minimum 20 mbps rates (current bar for ‘high speed’ internet). I expect the vast majority of rural locations aren’t covered. Other countries will be far worse on average. Cell internet is also quite expensive. Starlink offers 10x the minimum bandwidth. Running fiber everywhere it needs to go for backhaul would be fabulously expensive, and involve major environmental impacts.
marcosdumay 2y ago
The actual paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL109280 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL10... It adds up from the previous one that raises the concern, and now it does chemical simulation to discover what remains from the satellites. AFAIK, the conclusions are still not enough to determine if this is bad. But now that this paper is done, one can do the simulation (or extrapolate observed data) that discovers it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
declan_roberts 2y ago
So we're ushering in a new era of advanced communication and research for a... 6x increase in aluminum oxide in the ozone layer? Easy trade no problem. Will do it 100x times over again.
perihelions 2y ago
Stratospheric Al2O3 aerosols from space exploration are a phenomenon studied since at least the 1980's. Space Shuttle pollution probably dwarfs all of these modern sources, since aluminum was the primary fuel for the STS solid rocket boosters (about 160 tons Al per launch if I mathed right). - "The most probable source of the increasingly abundant classes of stratospheric particles are aerospace activities. As these activities increase, so will the flux of anthropogenic material into the atmosphere[Kessler, 1985; Johnson,1985]. It is possible to predict the composition of these particles from a knowledge of the most commonly used spacecraft materials. There should be four main sources for solid particulate aerospace material in the stratosphere.These are (1) solid rocket fuel exhaust, (2) solid rocket motor (SRM) ablation, (3) thermal reflective paint from the outer hulls of spacecraft,and (4) ablating hardware from satellites and discarded rocket sections in low-Earth orbit." - "It is well known that solid rocket fuel containing an aluminum additive produces spherical grains composed predominently of alumina when burned, and these particles have previously been noted among stratospheric particle collections [Brownlee et ai., 1976; Zolensky and Mackinnon, 1985]. The use of SRMs has increased steadily since the advent of the space shuttle, in 1981, to a peak in 1985." https://sci-hub.se/10.1029/jd094id01p01047 https://sci-hub.se/10.1029/jd094id01p01047 ("A tenfold increase in the abundance of large solid particles in the stratosphere, as measured over the period 1976–1984" (1989)) I don't buy for one second the sudden urgency to halt critical US/NATO military space capabilities for a phenomenon that's been studied for 40+ years with no obvious major issues.
- falcolas 2y ago
  Am I missing something, or are we talking about two different things - commercial vs. military usage? Starlink is not a military asset. Well, not for the US at least. Ukrane and Russia, certainly.
  - pnw 2y ago
    Starshield by SpaceX is most certainly a military asset.
- ElectronCharge 2y ago
  There’s also an easy fix, switch the structure from aluminum to carbon fiber…
SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
Without seriously discussing the scale, the effects, and other sources… this sure seems like just scientifically-veiled Musk-Hate.
- pnw 2y ago
  The last line of the article highlights their bias pretty clearly.
  - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
    This one from TechDirt, yea, a bit! > It’s a major reason why the Biden FCC retracted a wasteful billion-dollar Trump handout to Starlink, something that made MAGA cry.
    - pnw 2y ago
      That entire episode is ridiculous, it appears that Starlink would have been a fine addition to rural broadband. We've already handed out billions to telcos and ISPs who have made very little progress.

34 points by WarOnPrivacy 2y ago

What’s missing from this article: Any sense of proportion. It uses numbers that are large from any human perspective, but doesn’t say how they compare to the rest of civilisation, or nature.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
This is literally the second sentence of the article (emphasis mine): > Researchers at USC noted that at peak, 1,005 U.S. tons of aluminum will fall to Earth, releasing 397 U.S. tons of aluminum oxides per year to the atmosphere, an increase of 646% over natural levels.
- panzagl 2y ago
  But it doesn't compare that to the total release in the atmosphere, say from other manmade sources. I want to be sympathetic to the arguments I think the article is trying to make, but its content is really just 'Numbers! Billionaires suck!'
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    There are almost no other man-made emissions of aluminum oxides on the high atmosphere. It's just those two.
    - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
      When WW3 starts we will all be able to enjoy the rage bait about ICBM pollution.
      - marcosdumay 2y ago
        ICBMs themselves do not emit that kind of pollution (in any important amount). But nuclear explosions do.
        natch 2y ago
        Whoosh
- timschmidt 2y ago
  Does "natural levels" include the outputs of the aluminum smelting industry?
- Filligree 2y ago
  Yes, I imagine the natural level of aluminum falling into the atmosphere is pretty low. That doesn't say very much about what it'll do to the ozone layer. I'm actually amazed we get 50 tons from meteors and such already. But 400 tons of aluminum oxide, compared to the total size of the atmosphere, sounds to me like it should have effectively zero effect.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- natch 2y ago
  They neglected to put in other numbers though because the other numbers don’t fit their narrative. For instance, the total tonnage of atmospheric air which dwarfs their scare numbers by any measure. 5.15 x 10^15 tons is a way bigger number. Which if you do the math means these deorbiting satellites will be adding 0.0000000771 ppm to the atmosphere. You probably get exposed to 10,000 times more than that heating a leftover burrito in foil in the toaster oven. They also conveniently chose to share the much higher urban rate for Starlink service when conceding that it is useful in rural areas, trying to make it seem less appealing with their if you can afford it verbiage. It’s clear what’s going on here. Agenda driven “journalism” that hates on technology with a crafted narrative.
  - Filligree 2y ago
    The rest of the atmosphere isn't as important. But I mean, the ozone layer on its own is 3 billion tons...
- lukeschlather 2y ago
  That doesn't give enough sense of proportion. The mass of the ozone layer is 3 billion tons. Maybe 397 tons of aluminum could be a problem, but it's a very small number in context.

anymouse123456 2y ago

"...it’s generally more economically and environmentally sound to prioritize the deployment of fiber..." Um. Wat? Cannot wait to hear the same author howling about environmental destruction as the most awful of the megacorps dig millions of miles of trenches to lay down fiber. Also, unlike our scumbag trad ISPs, who constantly return to the subsidy trough and provide nothing of value, consider that maybe the financial calculus has been done by the people putting their own, actual dollars in on this one. Finally, since the author is so concerned with the needs of the underprivileged, where's their outrage over the $14.4 BILLION dollars[0] that were wasted in a failed attempt to get the rural areas of the country connected? [0] https://www.fcc.gov/acp https://www.fcc.gov/acp

cozzyd 2y ago
Really it just probably makes sense to upgrade cellular networks with enough backhaul bandwidth. (And deploy cell towers to cover people who are currently not covered yet, though I imagine that's a fairly small fraction of people at this point). For truly isolated communities without roads and such, satellite probably remains the best option.
- natch 2y ago
  FYI they misquoted the price for Starlink service. They used the city price which is higher. In the country Starlink makes it cheaper. So essentially city users who don’t really need Starlink are subsidizing the rural users, which is kind of awesome imho. Sad that journalists can’t get a level of nuance and accuracy about this kind of stuff, but they’re happy to misuse the wrong price to try to make a false dig against Starlink.
- ElectronCharge 2y ago
  I’d like to see a map showing US cell coverage that offers minimum 20 mbps rates (current bar for ‘high speed’ internet). I expect the vast majority of rural locations aren’t covered. Other countries will be far worse on average. Cell internet is also quite expensive. Starlink offers 10x the minimum bandwidth. Running fiber everywhere it needs to go for backhaul would be fabulously expensive, and involve major environmental impacts.

marcosdumay 2y ago

The actual paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL109280 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL10... It adds up from the previous one that raises the concern, and now it does chemical simulation to discover what remains from the satellites. AFAIK, the conclusions are still not enough to determine if this is bad. But now that this paper is done, one can do the simulation (or extrapolate observed data) that discovers it.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

declan_roberts 2y ago

So we're ushering in a new era of advanced communication and research for a... 6x increase in aluminum oxide in the ozone layer? Easy trade no problem. Will do it 100x times over again.

perihelions 2y ago

Stratospheric Al2O3 aerosols from space exploration are a phenomenon studied since at least the 1980's. Space Shuttle pollution probably dwarfs all of these modern sources, since aluminum was the primary fuel for the STS solid rocket boosters (about 160 tons Al per launch if I mathed right). - "The most probable source of the increasingly abundant classes of stratospheric particles are aerospace activities. As these activities increase, so will the flux of anthropogenic material into the atmosphere[Kessler, 1985; Johnson,1985]. It is possible to predict the composition of these particles from a knowledge of the most commonly used spacecraft materials. There should be four main sources for solid particulate aerospace material in the stratosphere.These are (1) solid rocket fuel exhaust, (2) solid rocket motor (SRM) ablation, (3) thermal reflective paint from the outer hulls of spacecraft,and (4) ablating hardware from satellites and discarded rocket sections in low-Earth orbit." - "It is well known that solid rocket fuel containing an aluminum additive produces spherical grains composed predominently of alumina when burned, and these particles have previously been noted among stratospheric particle collections [Brownlee et ai., 1976; Zolensky and Mackinnon, 1985]. The use of SRMs has increased steadily since the advent of the space shuttle, in 1981, to a peak in 1985." https://sci-hub.se/10.1029/jd094id01p01047 https://sci-hub.se/10.1029/jd094id01p01047 ("A tenfold increase in the abundance of large solid particles in the stratosphere, as measured over the period 1976–1984" (1989)) I don't buy for one second the sudden urgency to halt critical US/NATO military space capabilities for a phenomenon that's been studied for 40+ years with no obvious major issues.

falcolas 2y ago
Am I missing something, or are we talking about two different things - commercial vs. military usage? Starlink is not a military asset. Well, not for the US at least. Ukrane and Russia, certainly.
- pnw 2y ago
  Starshield by SpaceX is most certainly a military asset.
ElectronCharge 2y ago
There’s also an easy fix, switch the structure from aluminum to carbon fiber…

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago

Without seriously discussing the scale, the effects, and other sources… this sure seems like just scientifically-veiled Musk-Hate.

pnw 2y ago
The last line of the article highlights their bias pretty clearly.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
  This one from TechDirt, yea, a bit! > It’s a major reason why the Biden FCC retracted a wasteful billion-dollar Trump handout to Starlink, something that made MAGA cry.
  - pnw 2y ago
    That entire episode is ridiculous, it appears that Starlink would have been a fine addition to rural broadband. We've already handed out billions to telcos and ISPs who have made very little progress.