Reminds me of the proposal to deorbit end of life satellites by puncturing their lithium batteries :) The physics of consuming bits of old chip in an inefficie

Reminds me of the proposal to deorbit end of life satellites by puncturing their lithium batteries :) The physics of consuming bits of old chip in an inefficient plasma thruster probably work, as do the crawling robots and crushers needed for orbital disassembly, but we're a few years away yet. And whilst on orbit chip replacement is much more mass efficient than replacing the whole spacecraft, radiators and all, it's also a nontrivial undertaking