this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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The less can be sent into orbit, the better. We have enough trash in orbit as it is. No need to clutter it up any further.
good thing that uni projects are low orbit...
Yeah better go back to the caves where there were no plastic, right?
Edit: I'm all for sending stuff out in space in a responsible manner, just got bored about lots of people being anti tech here. Probably answered the wrong person, sorry!
BTW isn't most stuff in low orbit falling out down in the atmosphere or is that just not enough to chean it up?
Yup, low earth orbit (LEO) still has some thin atmosphere that slows things down a tiny bit and makes them deorbit over time. That's why, for example, the ISS has to reboost to stay up and can chuck garbage bags overboard and not really worry about them. The deorbit time depends on a lot of factors including the mass and surface area. Starlink sats are supposed to passively deorbit in about 5 years.
You realise that littering close orbit with more shit is just going to turn it into a whirling extraterrestrial claymore for anything trying to leave the planet.
Everything that goes up there should have a lifespan to come back down.