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[DesertGarden]

This message was self-deleted by its author (DesertGarden) on Sun Feb 13, 2022, 06:56 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[WheelWalker]

1. Karma. Awesome. Forty Units.

[getagrip_already]

2. 50 at a time, they want 30,000 plus up there.....

That's a whole of launching. Do that many people really need this?

[Rural_Progressive]

3. Can you say Virtual Reality?

I knew ya could.

Yep boys and girls that's what where this is all headed and why you are seeing the move into higher bandwidths and more satellite capacity. Want a docile global population? That's easy, just have billions of people willingly strap themselves into full immersion haptic rigs and spend their lives in a reality that's preferable to the real one they would be inhabiting otherwise.

Every time you read about new advances in chip implantation into a brain that allows a para or quadriplegic to bypass the damage to their spine and regain use of their limbs know that is just a nice bonus. The ultimate goal of all this research is the "Metaverse" coming soon to a virtual reality parlor near you.

[intrepidity]

7. Don't you think that's inevitable?

Once technology is available, it will be implemented. Hard to imagine otherwise.

[Rural_Progressive]

9. No question about it

but it doesn't seem like a lot of people are picking up on the fact.

[sdfernando]

10. and people think the MATRIX is fantasy. /nt

[intrepidity]

11. When I first saw that film I thought: yep

Nothing I've seen or learned since has me thinking otherwise; to the contrary, I've become more convinced. It explains every unsolved mystery imho.

[RandiFan1290]

12. Starship will be able to deploy about 400 Starlink satellites at a time. nt

[jmowreader]

16. Some of it, yeah

Modern first stages generally use kerosene and liquid oxygen, which produce CO2 and water when they burn.

Second stages run on liquid hydrogen, which produces CO2 when it’s being made.

And then there’s hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, which was fired during the Gemini program. No GHG because there’s no carbon, but extremely hazardous.

[Sgent]

19. SpaceX

uses methane for most of its rocket fuel*, which emits CO2 and water, but isn't toxic. The starlink satellites are in low enough orbit they will fall into the atmosphere and disintegrate in about 6 months without propulsion provided by their ion engines.

*for its manned launches it uses hydrazine gel propulsion (highly toxic) for the capsule itself, but not the rocket.

[Lovie777]

4. WOW, I can imagine all the countries of the world wanting their share. . ..

of satellites, I mean, since the earth itself is cluttered why not clutter up the space around the earth, what could go wrong.

[NullTuples]

5. Earth based astronomers are already proving that there will be a streak in every image frame.

[Owl]

8. Yes, and it's horrible.

A massive swarm of inevitable space junk. Sad.

[InstantGratification]

13. Not with these

I participate in the ARS Technica (the source for this article) forums and read their article and the comments on it this morning. There won't be any additional space junk (for long) from this. Apparently SpaceX intentionally launches these into lower than final orbit. They do that so that after launch, if any of the sats fail the diagnostic checkout, they will de-orbit naturally in a matter of weeks. If they pass, they begin raising them to final orbit.

The solar flare that caused this didn't actually damage the sats, it heated the upper atmosphere causing it to expand outward which resulted in the sats being in a much thicker air causing about 50% higher drag than expected. The electric thrusters SpaceX used are more efficient then the chemical thrusters some sats use, but they are lower thrust. The extra drag proved to be more than the thrusters could over come and they lost 40 of the 49 sats launched. Most of the 40 have already started reentry and the rest will within a week. As a side note, they are also designed to burn up completely on reentry so their shouldn't be any junk hitting the ground either.

[ruet]

15. Welcome Fellow Arsian.

[SWBTATTReg]

18. Thanks for the info!

[burrowowl]

20. Welcome to DU

Thanks for info

[2naSalit]

6. A harninger of...

How that whole program will eventually fail. More space junk.


I'm sure Elon is looking for some way to make taxpayers cover the loss.

[OnlinePoker]

17. YouTuber Scott Manley has a good explanation of what happened.

[OxQQme]

21. What should SpaceX do to avoid losing MORE satellites?

Ellie has been covering Starlink and SpaceX for couple of years.
https://www.youtube.com/c/ElianaSheriff/about

"Howdy!
I am a news reporter in beautiful Salt Lake City with a passion for all things space.
My channel started as a way to keep people up to date on the world of SpaceX's Starlink, the satellite internet service. The channel has grown to include the broader Elon Musk universe."