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simoncion • today at 4:07 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

> ...burning ten thousand tons of toxic e-waste annually...

Expressing water usage in gallons makes it seem really large, too. NASA says[0]:

  Scientists estimate that about 48.5 tons (44 tonnes or 44,000 kilograms) of meteoritic material falls on Earth each day.
If we assume that they're all the heavier v2 units, the total mass of the orbital portion of Starlink is ten point four tons. [1] If we assumed that they lasted one year (instead of the five that they're reported to last[1]), then over the course of a year, Starlink would dump six hours worth of asteroid collisions into the atmosphere.

I think we'll be fine. Pour all that frustrated energy you have into substantially reducing the amount of incredibly hazardous d-waste [3] big commercial operators burn up into our atmosphere, instead.

[0] <https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/meteors-meteorites/#h-...>

[1] According to [2] there are currently 10,413 satellites. At an assumed 1760 lbs each, this works out to roughly 10.4 tons.

[2] <https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html>

[3] "dino"-waste, AKA CO2

Replies

happosai • today at 7:48 PM

a) Meteorites don't have any of toxic chemicals used to build a server with lithium-ion batteries and solar panels

b) we could use the same argument to defend dumping spent nuclear fuel to oceans (like we used to do)

c) I agree with the CO2 issue, grok/spacex/xAI and others should be banned from building gas powered datacenters.

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jaycroft • today at 4:57 PM

I think you missed a factor of 1000 somewhere in there: Each satellite weighs about 1 ton, there are about 10,000 of them. That is 10,000 tons in orbit for the constellation, not 10. Assuming a 5 year decay, that's 10000/5/365 ~= 5 tons / day. Still about 10% of the natural incoming material, but considerably more than your "six hours worth per year".

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