this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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Yes, the rocket is reusable. The fuel is not, and by lowering the cost per kg of space freight, it has driven more usage of rockets. Which use non-renewable fuel at astounding rates and make huge emissions for a minor payload total.
We’re seeing extreme temperatures and unseasonal weather events already - James Webb is cool and the ISS does need service missions but Starlink is just more orbital trash waiting to happen.
Starlink will never be orbital trash in any meaningful way. If everything failed today, they'd all deorbit within 5 years. It's only in higher orbits where shit gets stuck for decades or hundreds of years.
You're right. They'll be atmospheric pollution. That's what "burn up on reentry" means.
Well in that case, 100% of things that we've launched into space are either
1: Space trash
2: Atmospheric Trash
3: Ocean Trash
Except for the 1st stages of F9 and it's fairings, and one or two first stages of some other small start ups.
Edit: sorry and the shuttle. In retrospect with the amount of refurbishment it required it wasn't really "reusable" per say, but it did avoid being ocean trash.
That does seem to be the point this thread is making: Going to space is really bad for Earth's environment. SpaceX and starlink are just accelerating that.
Rocket launches are not why climate change is occurring.
It’s not helping. We aren’t going to get a “deus ex machina” moment on righting damage done to the environment. Yes focus on the bigger goals and pollution sources, but this is a trend in the wrong way to enlarge Elon’s money pile.
You’re missing the forest for the trees and way over estimating how much pollution rocket launches put out.
We have to leave the planet, which means we need to practice so to speak, and those rockets are the only way we are going to get out there right now. The pollution produced by them is well worth it.
We need to leave the planet? For where?
For a planet that's completely incapable of sustaining life?
Do you realize that it'll take many, many orders of magnitude more resources, time, and effort to make literally any other celestial body within several years of space flight of us capable of sustaining life than it will be to fix the habitable planet we have right here?
We're not getting off this rock without stabilizing it enough to sustain us long-term first. And by then, we won't need to leave. Either way, though, evacuating isn't a viable solution.
And if you don't believe me, go talk to some biologists.
Gotta do it eventually dude or this will be our grave.
It’s strange to me that you can have the foresight to see the existential threat that is climate change, but not the risk of having all of our eggs in one basket.
You’ve also moved the goalposts. Your original argument was that they pollute so much and use so many finite resources that they’re bad. Is this no longer your argument?
You’re never going to convince me that space exploration is something we should stop.
What the hell are you talking about? Where did I contradict that argument, and hell, where did I even make it in the first place?
I said that it will take far more resources to terraform and colonize another planet than to fix this one. I didn't even touch on the pollution and use of finite resources (which is also an issue, mainly because of how much we're doing it)
I'm all for space exploration, we have so many breakthroughs that are usable here on Earth through it that not doing it at all would be foolish. But you're kidding yourself if you think we're going to succeed in leaving.
This planet will be our grave, sadly. We might, if we're very lucky and can actually change what we're doing finally, make that be a very distant thing.
But settling another planet, as much as I would absolutely love to see it, is likely never going to happen just from the sheer logistics of it, not to mention the fact that we still haven't managed to build a self sustaining and isolated ecosystem that can support humans indefinitely on this planet, where we can truck everything to the site rather than have to shoot it into space a tiny amount at a time and then have it spend 9 months to 2 years to reach the nearest planet
And unless we want to save a tiny population living under domes, we'd have to extend that to an entire planet that's far, FAR further from our target than this one which already sustains life, and which doesn't have a magnetosphere in the first place so even if we managed to give it a thick enough atmosphere with the right blend for us, it'll simply bleed away into space anyway.
And unless you're thinking of going to the hellhole that is Venus, the next nearest potential candidate is probably going to be one of the moons of Jupiter, which have plenty of their own issues.
I'd like to see what people's reactions would be if we put all the 6,219 starlink satellites in a pile on the ground and lit them on fire. Would they say "fuck yeah! Fast internet!" or would they say "are you out of your mind?"
And they plan on having 12,000 or something each lasting about 5 years.