[notacoward]

> The starlink satellites are designed to burn up in the atmosphere.

How high in the atmosphere, though? They're not likely to hit the ground, sure, but 36,000 feet isn't the ground. Second, designs fail. 432 Park was designed not to have cracking and spalling concrete, yet NYT has a story today about exactly those things. Third, people lie about designs and capabilities. Pretty sure anyone who has ever worked in computing (especially with VC involved) has seen that. Who made that claim, and did they ever back it up?

I'm not saying that Starlink is the culprit here. The evidence is thin. OTOH the possibility can't just be dismissed because of a claim about a design to prevent a similar (but not identical) thing.

[MaxikCZ]

I pressume its much easier to design something to burn than to do anything else. You are basically just restricting yourself on material selection. The goal isnt for something to not fail, the goal is to fail. Its like asking to build a lawnmower that doesnt have to cut grass, and can look however you want. If you produce a pebble, it fits those criteria.

The atmospheric entrance for these (starlink) sattelites is basically as shallow as possible, so the object spends the most time possible in high atmosphere (think 60-90 km, where the atmo is thick enough to engulf the object in plasma, yet extert low pressure to slow it down, prolonging the time its burning. In otherwords, you couldnt achieve better parameters to burn stuff on deorbit.

All of it will probably be fully burned way before 50km - planes fly at 8-12

[notacoward]

"Probably"? Even in their defense you felt a need to hedge, and that should tell you something. As another commenter has pointed out, Starlink has admitted that some components might survive re-entry. Let's not fall all over ourselves trying to give Musk and Co. more benefit of the doubt than they even give themselves.