I imagine it’d make the business more expensive low orbit satelites slowly fall into the atmosphere and are supposed to burn up after a couple of years. I imagine with lower orbits that they’d fall sooner and you’d have to launch more to sustain your system which then produces more pollution and perpetuates the problem.
Edit article says more space junk and slower burning up in the atmosphere as an effect so that’s interesting. If it becomes a space junk graveyard I imagine satellites will more frequently get damaged by them and become junk themselves?
Things fall into the thicker parts of the atmosphere because drag from the tiny amounts of air up there. if that is shrinking, then you can get lower before you have the same amount of drag? Therefore lower orbits might be more feasible?
Lower orbit means faster though, so it may not be linear? Would be interesting to see (someone else do) the maths.
I imagine it’d make the business more expensive low orbit satelites slowly fall into the atmosphere and are supposed to burn up after a couple of years. I imagine with lower orbits that they’d fall sooner and you’d have to launch more to sustain your system which then produces more pollution and perpetuates the problem.
Edit article says more space junk and slower burning up in the atmosphere as an effect so that’s interesting. If it becomes a space junk graveyard I imagine satellites will more frequently get damaged by them and become junk themselves?
Things fall into the thicker parts of the atmosphere because drag from the tiny amounts of air up there. if that is shrinking, then you can get lower before you have the same amount of drag? Therefore lower orbits might be more feasible?
Lower orbit means faster though, so it may not be linear? Would be interesting to see (someone else do) the maths.
Eventually, mining the LEO cloud for energy and materials will become lucrative.
Of course, there are other issues with our atmosphere going away….
Like that we are speedrunning to making Earth into Mars?
Given the speed of climate change, probably more like a speed run to our sister planet, Venus.