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tmvphil | 4 months ago

Not sure what the slippery slope is here. The linked page imagines a 4km x 4km radiator/solar array. The cross-sectional area of the array is going to be directly proportional to the probability of impacting high velocity space debris. In such an event the amount of debris that would be generated could also scale with the area of the array. This seems bad

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caminante|4 months ago

> This seems bad

e.g., Cianide seems bad, but it won't kill you if the relative volumes are small.

tl;dr: You haven't characterized the denominator.

tmvphil|4 months ago

See my edit. Just one starcloud would represent an increase in a risk factor of over 300 c.f. status quo. Then multiply that by the number of starclouds you think would be deployed.