Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites could damage the environment for decades, study says

1 comment

1. It mentions: (extract)

   “Aluminium oxides deplete ozone by causing it to react destructively with chlorine, the study says.”

   …

   “The oxides can stay in the atmosphere and destroy the ozone layer for decades, researchers warn.”

   …

   “A small satellite produces about 30 kg of aluminium oxides when it burns up.

   In 2022 alone, researchers say, falling satellites may have contributed about 17 tonnes of tiny aluminium oxide particles.

   When all the currently planned satellite constellations are in place, scientists estimate, more than 350 tonnes of aluminium oxides will be released each year.

   This is a whopping increase of nearly 650 per cent over natural atmospheric levels.”

   I guess the question is,

   What are ‘natural atmospheric levels’?

   https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020JA028792

   Extract:

   “Plain Language Summary
   Around 30 tons of cosmic dust particles enter the Earth’s atmosphere each day. Aluminum (Al) makes up around 1.4% of these particles by mass. “

   It would be nice to see figure 7 correlated against the different networks and sum of them, and also other launches with expected burn-in reentry waste disposal.

   If you think of it this way – many things would burn in the atmosphere, but as with rockets that can now return and land, as launch equipment improves, there’s almost certainly going to be ways to avoid air pollution in the future.

   Also, I read that JAXA has tested a satellite made using timber! This is a great thing! What’s difficult is that growing things are rarely homogeneous enough for precision engineering, so it’s been less used as a material, because it’s difficult to be sure all pieces of timber are the same.

   But today there’s a range of multi spectrum imaging techniques and sophisticated sensors that allow for testing materials non-destructively.

   This means you could potentially use a variety of organic materials for space purposes, materials that gain strength from organically assembled molecular structures.

   I have no doubt that there’s going to be substantial change and innovation as decades pass, and the technology is adapted as knowledge increases and concerns are tested and assessed.