In general, these things are zipping around the earth at 17,000 mph. There’s 5,504 of them. Space is already dangerous with all of the space garbage in order. If these were to collide it could easily make getting things into orbit due to the debris and the chain reaction if the debris caused more debris from impact. Space garbage really is something we don’t have a solution for.
Comment on FCC Denies Starlink Low-Orbit Bid for Lower Latency
fadedmaster@sh.itjust.works 3 months agoThat doesn’t say anything about lethal range. It just says they won’t allow it to be lower than the ISS’s orbit. It could be because of “lethal range” or it could be that they want as little crap in the way of routes to and from the ISS.
I looked over the article (albeit very quickly) just in case you didn’t quote enough of the article on accident and I didn’t see anything about lethality. I could have missed it or I’m not reading between the lines (maybe missing their meaning in the article).
Veneroso@lemmy.world 3 months ago
ShepherdPie@midwest.social 3 months ago
This is a pretty ignorant take and borderline disinformation. Yes they travel fast. Yes there are a lot of them. No they don’t pose any risk of blocking space travel even if they all exploded because they’re not in a stable orbit where they can just stay up there forever. They’re low enough that they’re facing a constant pull back into earth.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Just for others, they’d all burn up in the atmosphere in a few years.
So it may disrupt things temporarily but not long term.
Kbobabob@lemmy.world 3 months ago
There’s less than 10 kilometers between them and SpaceX has been known to have some go out of their designed orbit. So it has the potential to be and they determined the risk is not worth it.