this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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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.