5 ms·

One man able to put a data center worth of mass in orbit is one man able to crash a datacenter worth of mass into Earth anywhere he wants.

• recursive 9mo ago
  Not a given. Re enter the atmosphere. Sure. Avoid vaporization? Much harder problem.
  • debatem1 9mo ago
    There is some evidence to suggest that spacex knows how to reenter an object without burning it up.
    • duskwuff 9mo ago
      Sometimes without even meaning to: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/spacex-cbc-debris-space-junk-sask-1.7231571 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/spacex-cbc-debris-s...
    • TheOtherHobbes 9mo ago
      The engineering overlap between between a small object designed for reentry and a flying (crashing...) warehouse is not a circle. Once upon a time there was a bonkers "rods from god" mass bomb idea, but that didn't work either.
  • reppap 9mo ago
    I think it's actually the other way around, satellites need to be specifically designed to burn up fast in the atmosphere. See for example the warnings about space debris from Chinese satellites not designed with this in mind.
  • idontwantthis 9mo ago
    100 tons of steel will not vaporize before it hits the ground