How awesome would it be for Donald Trump, Joe Rogan, Dana White, and Elon Musk himself to get smashed by a Musk satellite during a photo op in the octagon at the White House UFC fight.
I mean, if we’re going to go with retribution-by-improbable events, I have to stick with the classics. There’s nothing quite like an evil leader being smote by lightning bolt. It just has that “wrath of an angry God” effect like nothing else.
If that happened, you could not convince me that we aren’t all extras in Idiocracy 2.
I mean I’m drawing on other peoples comedic talent
falling from the the sky and burning is a good thing, bigger concern is them staying up there for too long
Falling from the sky a good thing?
Ok well hope neither you nor a loved one is standing under it then. Cuz you sure aren’t hoping so. Go learn some humanity in the meanwhile.
You do know that it’ll just burn up in the atmosphere?
Most of them, there was a link in the article about one starlink satellite that didn’t completely burn up. But their biggest concern atm is what effect it will have on the atmosphere. From the article.
“What that means, though, is that all the mass of the satellites — the solar panels, plastic, metal, batteries — it’s all getting melted and deposited in the upper atmosphere. So, that’s not a good thing”
falling from the the sky and burning is a good thing
Jury is still out on this one.
“We’re really changing the composition of the stratosphere into a state that we’ve never seen before,” said John Dykema, an applied physicist at SEAS, who warns that scientists today poorly understand many of the impacts.
…who warns that scientists today poorly understand many of the impacts.
Hahaha I’m sure they understand fine, they’re just paid handsomely to ignore those impacts. Just for this quarter until something better with this degree opens up. . .ok just for this quarter. . .then they’ll grow an ethical conscience! Definitely!
Yeah…You can tell that to the tire industry and the microplastics crisis…
falling from the sky onto things is a problem tho
communication satellites are low earth orbit to reduce latency, that means +25000 km/h velocity to sustain orbit, and would also have a very shallow entry angle, that combination means total vaporization
Low earth orbit is most survivable reentry trajectory… coming in at a higher angle significantly increases the heating.
The vaporized materials themselves are a problem. When we’re building these mega-constellations, we’re putting some real mass up there. We’re introducing all sorts of exotic materials into the stratosphere that would not naturally occur there at those concentrations. And remember, this is a very sensitive environment. The actual volume of CFCs we introduced into the stratosphere wasn’t that large. The volume of all our AC refrigerant and hair spray cans was nothing compared to the atmosphere. We may actually not be that far from the sheer volume of satellites affecting the ozone layer as they decay.
The stratosphere is an environment like any other. It has a finite ability to absorb and process any form of pollution without noticeable and significant effects. I’m not qualified enough to estimate the number of satellite reentries to damage the ozone layer or to have other deleterious effects, but at least from that study featured in that video, we may not be far off. The story of civilization has been repeatedly realizing that what we once considered infinite dumping grounds were anything but. And the stratosphere is no different.
Edit: may have misinterpreted parent comment and went off on a wild tangent.
We would be pretty lucky if it impacted something like the ozone layer in a noticeable way as that’s something that can be seen and could be acted on and repaired as we’ve seen.
It’s the effects that we don’t know that are probably going to be the bigger problem.
[Go outside at dawn, breathe deep]
Ah, nothing like the taste of fresh satellite in the morning!
Nothing quite like that aluminum oxide! So refreshing!
What does that have to do with orbits and reentry angle?
That’s a good question!
I think you meant to respond a couple comments up the chain.
i mean, with that many satellites what are the odds (i have the smoked 2 joints stupids) something fucks up and it doesn’t come in at that shallow entry angle?
Due to the physics and orbital mechanics, near impossible thankfully
What the fuck is “half a pickup truck” for a measure
And are we talking a reasonable work truck, or one of those American abominations referred to as ‘pickup trucks.’
About 0.000000281 Saarländer
Americans will use anything other than the metric system.
As an american, I am 100% onboard on switching entirely to measuring things in terms of pickup trucks.
- Preheat oven to 1 pickup truck
- Bake for 1 pickup truck
F-350°F for F-150 minutes.
I think this could be an untapped cookbook market. Make it look like a shop manual and I’m in.
This is what it’s like for Europeans to follow American recipes!
1 cup of any liquid… no problem, that’s 240ml.
1 cup of raisins… who fucking knows.
This recipe serves 2-3 pickup trucks
Since most automobiles are water-cooled, the pickup truck temp is probably about 110 f / 43 c, so you’d want to preheat to 3 1/2 pickup trucks.
Similarly, since the mean life of trucks is probably 20 years, we’d measure casual time in a subdivisions of 175,320 hours / 10,519,200 minutes. One picotruck would be 1/10th of a minute, so you want to bake for 300 pico-trucks
We will of course maintain this system once trucks become 50-year lived semi-autonomous drones that never get over 35 c, because the one constant in defining units is that rejiggijng definitions is preferred to technical precison.
Your oven will preheat in about 5 minutes, which means it’s heading at 3pickup trucks per 50 picotrucks, or, once you reduce the units, 60 billion.
This pickup truck can accelerate to thirty thousand pickup trucks per hour, and fuel efficiency is one quarter quarter quarter toy pickup truck per pickup truck.
Things got confusing when my electric meter started reporting pickup truck pickup truck pickup trucks.
But the reference objects keep getting bigger!
It’s like a cubit, it changes depending on who’s in charge.
Ditto
This is a Canadian publication.
EDIT:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Narwhal
The Narwhal is a Canadian investigative online magazine that focuses on environmental issues.[1][2]
Somebody about to realise no one can tell the difference between these two countries…
Unfortunately, a lot of Americanisms have infected Canada due to our historically extremely close trade and cultural relationship with them. Measurement ignorance is one example. Some Americanisms actually become arguably worse in Canada, because we are effectively rudderless, pulled in all different directions by both our own laws and customs and American laws and customs at the same time, resulting in an even less well-defined choice of units. Another example is dates. The US uses mm/dd/yy which is already stupid on its own, but Canada uses BOTH mm/dd/yy and dd/mm/yy seemingly without rhyme or reason, which results in complete ambiguity of many dates, or trying to figure out based on context, looking for other dates that might use a day number >12 to identify which one actually is the day vs the month.
It’s awful. I am happy we are distancing ourselves from the US right now, but I’m not sure it will ever be enough to totally escape their shadow.
The US uses mm/dd/yy which is already stupid on its own, but Canada uses BOTH mm/dd/yy and dd/mm/yy seemingly without rhyme or reason
Maintains our cognitive health. Can’t just look at a date and know what it is without doing math and logic (method of exclusion)!
and when it’s 2/3 which is it?
Fuck it. Let’s just outlaw time. Let’s just make it illegal to own a clock!
Calendars too. We’ll just live in the eternal now.
Then you get to exercise probability theory. 😆 Worst case scenario gotta talk to people.
talk to people? ugh
okay point for canadians being american in that american covers the continents sometimes, not just stupid ol’ statesia
yeah, we have fucking idiots who have no idea what a kilogram is.
Maybe if we tricked them into saying, like, “as heavy as a three hundred kilogram box of bricks”
but that’s not as much fun as saying as tall as a three hundred kilogram box of bricks.
😭
Which US state is Ca.?
but it’s 0.5 Pickup Trucke.
is that an old fashioned pickup truck or an electric pickup truck
Americans will use literally anything except the metric system 😔
There is a metric. The metric is one truck!
Must’ve been writing at the same time - I checked to see if anyone had said the same thing first too.
It’s a Canadian website.
Seems like they’re ‘Murican enough based on this article.
You posted a minute earlier, but the other guy got the upvotes. Or maybe the timing is based on instance?
I’m unbothered by that - It’s lemmy, them’s the breaks sometimes 🤷♂️
Two of them is roughly the size of a pickup truck…
Like, it’s volume, they could say X gallons, but it would be hard for people to visualize. So people use an example most readers would be familiar with.
Have you honestly never wondered why journalists use random things? Or has no one taken the time to answer before?
It’s been common literally for centuries before either of us were born, but most likely all of human existence. Just with animals like buffalo instead of pickup trucks.
You know what is roughly half the size of an American pickup truck and very common? A sedan. Like a regular sized car.
The annoying thing isn’t using a common object to show scale. It’s that they are cutting it in half. Like, you have other whole objects to choose from. It kind of ruins the point.
That’s what frustrates me about the title at least.
Why can’t we just go back to reporting volumes in bushels, like God intended?
That half giraffe really killed me.
You know what is roughly half the size of an American pickup truck and very common? A sedan. Like a regular sized car.
Oh ok…
Seems like you have two problems:
-
You have no idea how big an American pickup truck is
-
Instead of asking questions, you make assumptions and hope someone teaches you
One is a much bigger problem than the other, I wish you best of luck with both tho.
God I hate stupid fucking pretentious responses like this. Especially when you can just use something as simple as a Google Image search.
I live in America mate. I know how large an f150 is. Here. Choose a truck and sedan at your leisure. Heres the top selling truck next to the top selling sedan.
Not quite double the “size” if by that we mean volume. But definitely close. Quick napkin math of about 1.8x the size.
Or you could just pick a smaller car literally everyone knows. Like a Honda Civic and use that to explain the size.
You seem to be the one that doesn’t know how big an American pickup is. Though it is always enjoyable when a pretentious reply like yours is so easily proven wrong.
What year f150 are we talking about, and which model? It changes a lot.
Do you know what doesn’t change? 1m³
Mods want to explain why linking carsized.com and telling a commenter they are being pretentious gets a comment removed by mods?
Edit: Maybe it’s my mobile app? When someone blocks you maybe it’s confusing the comment thread? Idk.
-
It’s funny because every single person who uses the metric system can visualise what 1-4m³ looks like, which many of these “random object” measurements often fit into. So much easier as there’s no definition of what size a “pickup truck” is.
I think the issue is half of a regular truck or a ‘Murica’ truck. I got loaned one of the latter last I had some work done on my regular vehicle, it wouldn’t fit in the garage and I had to actually use the steps/handles to get in. As a 6 foot plus person that’s kinda abnormal.
And which 'Murica pickup truck?
The problem is he’s Unfortunately, short, so he has a hard time on visualizing things like the size of pick up, which are quite large
I don’t mind the “size of common everyday thing” for a news article. It gives an easy to understand measure of the scale.
It’s the “half” part that is infuriating. Like, you couldn’t just pick another common object of the right size? Like, I’m pretty sure you could just say “a sedan” and be pretty close to the size. Is this just AI writing titles?
Just another method of getting clicks. Writing stupid titles like “half a pickup truck sized” so people click it to understand what the fuck they mean.
Are we talking like a 2005 Ford ranger or a 2024? F350? Because there is no standard size for a pickup truck.
Cars have gotten bigger but trucks have too.
A Honda Civic today is like half the “size” of an F150
SUVs are technically more “volume” then a lot of trucks though. Since they don’t lose all the volume having a flat bed. But “volume” is kinda silly. Anyway. None of this is meant to be specific because, I mean, it’s literally just about a title to give a person an idea of the scale of an object they know nothing about.
14 fridges
I don’t know why that’s more frightening
Edit: I realized it’s childhood trauma.
Billy?
because i pulled it out of my ass?
A normal car.
Half of the standard passenger vehicle around here.
what rural Murica understands.
What does rural canada understand?
Hockey rinks!
Oops
sorry, eh?
It’s the perfect fit when something’s too small to compare to whales and too big to compare to bananas.
Front or back half? They are substantially different on volume
but how many hamburgers is it?!
Probably 1.25x the size of a washing machine
I don’t understand what kind of capitalist pig you need to be to allow private companies access to low orbit.
just some random capitalist hereIt’s impossible to regulate space. Even if your government put restrictions on putting things in orbit, the company could just launch under the flag of somewhere else. Blanket banning of commercial space programs would require a universal treaty or would lead to an act of war. Im not saying the US shouldn’t try and do something about space trash, but it’s not as simple as “just ban corporations from space”
Space is extremely regulated, SpaceX just gets permits approved to do anything they want because they’re extremely cooperative with the US military and CIA.
Rocket Lab is a private rocket company that launches from New Zealand, but part of the company is in the US so they still have to get an FAA license to launch from any country. No matter where SpaceX goes they would need FAA and FCC licensing.
There is like 10 launch site in the world. The fuck we can’t regulate that ?!
We simply don’t want to.
SpaceX bought a retired oil platform at one point to try and use as a launch point. It didnt work, but if you told them they couldn’t launch from land they’d probably figure a way out.
Doesn’t matter, authorities in the jurisdiction where they are based and also where there clients are can just fine them into oblivion. This government won’t but they could, if they wanted to. That’s the whole point of the law, regulators “just” have to write it down for it to become what everybody must follow, or have terrible consequences. They don’t have to be physically blocked. It’s not a technical problem.
That’s a bigger thing than just closing the spaceports to private companies as OP was suggesting.
That would likely be politically more difficult to pull off than closing existing ports.
edit: Just to clarify, one is saying, sorry you can’t use our public resources. The other is saying, sorry you can’t build your own resources either.
Both construction and launch facilities are highly specialized and expensive, there’s a reason only a handful of countries have them. You can’t just ship your rocket to Micronesia and launch from a grassy field
You can’t?
FINE! I’LL JUST GO HOME THEN!
Is it regulated? What’s stopping me from putting up a satellite?
Gravity
That’s the apple thing right? I’m sure I can figure it out if I put my mind to it.
yo momma would give you such a smacking
That’s a risk I’m willing to take.
As was always the plan for these satellites.
The article raises a vague concern about Kessler syndrome. This is exactly why these satellites are designed to deorbit once their useful lifespan is finished. I don’t see what the point of this article is at all.
They probably burn up also
Yeah, they actually design them with reentry in mind to maximize the burn-up and ensure no pieces hit the ground. I recall they had a bit of difficulty when they first introduced laser data links to the design because the lenses the satellites used were large pieces of glass that would make it to the ground on reentry, they had to redesign them to fragment more easily.
Then read the article. They found debris from starlink satellites on the ground, which is horrifying if you consider they want to increase the number of satellites by a factor of 100x and make them much bigger to build datacenters in space.
That plan would lead to one re-entry every three minutes, depositing insane amounts of plastics and metals in the atmosphere even if they would burn up completely.Is anyone really planning on building data centers in space? I assume everyone who knows how physics works is aware that cooling will be nearly impossible with today’s tech.
How big do you think these are going to be? A lot of people seem to have this concept of these massive things in space and that’s not what it’s going to be.
Starlink v3 already need to radiate 20kw of heat away, these are going to be 100kw.
They aren’t huge, they are many.
Well, the heat generating datacenter part isn’t anyway… the solar panels and radiators will be quite large once unfolded.
Edit: Clarity above, but also here’s an image which they say is to scale.
See how small the actually data center portion is? Those solar panels are super thin and will fold up super tiny, and so will the radiator. Even if the radiator size is wrong, the main point is these things are small, and not what you should think of when you think data center. I think someone else likened the size to a server rack or two.
It’s not as impossible as you think. Scott Manley did an analysis of the heat budget recently and it’s quite reasonable.
Part of the plan, sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good plan. They don’t have control of where the debris lands, and Starlink doesn’t take responsibility for cleanup when it lands on others’ property.
The debris will be microscopic. It won’t “land” anywhere noticeable.
The fine particulate matter may not be great for the ozone layer, but it’s actually pretty negligible compared to all of the other pollution that we’re not addressing either. That doesn’t justify the pollution, but hopefully it helps contextualize it.
Per the article, sometimes they burn up, sometimes they don’t.
The big culprit I was remembering isn’t Starlink, but SpaceX, with the debris being potentially lethal (over 6 feet, too heavy for one person to move.)
From the same professor: https://wlos.com/news/local/professor-spacexs-lack-of-accountability-for-space-debris-frustrating-nasa-samantha-lawlwer-university-of-regina-saskatchewan-canada
Musk’s companies are notorious for lack of responsibility. At least Cards Against Humanity held they’re get to the fire for a minute.
I ran into this dramatization for media hits before, with the complaint about rocket launches and their contribution to pollution. People were all about getting out the pitchforks, especially since it was mainly about Elon Musk, but when the actual numbers were mentioned (very small), suddenly, I was the bad guy. No one likes real facts.
Now, should we be launching so many things that are designed to fall back down so soon? Probably not, that’s the mark of a disposable society in high gear. But how we’re doing things, and why, should be the focus, not a headline that makes it sound like things are falling out of the sky to hit people.
and, is that half an F150 or half a Ranger?
Half a cybertruck, duh.
I yearn for the day Kessler Syndrome finally locks us on this rock with the billionaires that have ruined this planet for personal gains.
Their hastily built escape rockets coming face to face with chunks of debris travelling at orbital velocity, would truly be poetic justice.
Heralding the beginning of an actual civilised society, one without the people that spend their lives manipulating world governments and public opinion through lobbying and mass media.
It ain’t going to happen with what we’re currently doing. The orbits are too low. It’ll just hamper things for 5 years or so if bad shit happens until everything burns up in the atmosphere.
The syndrome is kind of already in effect it’s just in very early cycles. It was a few months ago the ISS made emergency maneuvers to avoid debris and a few weeks ago some telecom satellite lost comms and they assume from debris. Won’t be long as more debris multiplies that it becomes unmanageable and untraceable so bad that your scenario starts happening.
Although realistically with the strides we’ve made in orbital liftoff weights they’ll probably start armoring shit.
Given that they left the shuttle booster unpainted to save on weight, I doubt we’ll be able to launch anything with armour that can stop anything but the smallest shards from doing damage, we also already amrour everything to protect against the constant bombardment of space debris, where even a spec of dust can create a 2mm hole
https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Space_Debris/Hypervelocity_impacts_and_protecting_spacecraft
Depending on trajectory, space debris in orbit can hit you with up to 10x the velocity of an armor-piercing sabot round (which is just a metal dart). So even tanks on earth aren’t armored nearly enough to survive space debris.
It’s going to be a lot worse when SpaceX and xAI merge and they’re launching thousands of data center satellites in orbit.
No one is going to launch a data center in to orbit. They are expensive, heavy, and impossible to cool up there. There is NO benefit at all, and many, MANY reasons not to.
data center satellites
Yeah that’s not going to happen because there is a long LONG list of reasons why that is a really bad idea that will never work
Then again, Elmo will keep trying of course because knowing that list requires some basic engineering knowledge and world’s biggest retard doesn’t know anything about engineering, but he does think he know, and has all the money and yes men in the world
I predict that he will convince some company to try and build one of those hilarious datacenter satellites, lose hundreds of millions of dollars and go bankrupt because of problems any high schooler could have pointed out
They’ll probably launch 100 and not have enough demand. It’s an unfathomably expensive thing.
Hopefully. But everybody also knew the metaverse was a stupid idea but still billions were invested.
