Ready for some Dystopia?
Satellite internet will probably severely damage the ozone layer.
The worst about it?
The damage is not now, but it will take decades before it starts.
But: First things first!
What is the ozone layer?
The ozone layer is located in the lower stratosphere (15-35km above ground), where the concentration of ozone (O₃) is highest. This layer shields us from most of, otherwise deadly, UV radiation from the sun.
The O₃ molecules are rather unstable and easily broken up.
This instablity is, what makes ozone at ground level (summer smog) dangerous.
We all know that in the 1970s and 80s scientists noticed a depletion of the ozone layer around the poles due to the presence of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), used for aerosoles, fridges and air conditions in the atmosphere.
These CFCs, chemically stable substances, acted as catalysts, breaking up the ozone molecules.
This led to the one and only truly global and successful environmental legislation banning the use and production of CFCs worldwide.
Now, there is new threat: Satellite internet!
What’s the problem?
Satellite internet has been around for a long time now, in order to provide remote locations with internet access. It used to be provided by satellites in High Earth Orbit (HEO), at around 35,000km from Earth. Whilst providing good bandwidth and an enormous area of ground coverage, the long distance causes two problems: You need a good transmitter on the ground and longer latency (signals needing time 0.2s to go up and down – unsuitable for multiplayer action games, fine for everything else).
Tech bros didn’t like the idea of depending on bulky equipment to access the internet during their skiing trips and having to “suffer” from delays during their real time communication whilst on the go. War and drug lords operating in areas without cable and mobile phone coverage thought the same, and so they came up with a “genius” idea:
»Let’s place 1,000s of small satellites in Low Earth orbit (LEO) at about 500-1,000km to provide us with lower latency internet everywhere, which can be reached with smaller equipment, in the future even with phones, and also turn it into a big business!«
Elon Musk’s Starlink was the first company to launch the service and has currently around 6,000 satellites in LEO, planned are up to 35,000 and other corporations, namely many people’s favourite retailer Amazon, are in the process of putting their own mega constellations of satellites into orbit.
These satellites are already causing big trouble to Earth bound astronomy, but this isn’t the worst: Whilst the LEO is “space” in most practical and legal senses, there are still some naughty air molecules scattered around and colliding constantly with these wonderful devices, slowing them down and making them eventually fall back to our planet.
At an altitude of 50-100km the air gets thicker, and the satellites get hot and burn up in the atmosphere, creating a fine dust of metaloxide particles. This fine dust is also eventually coming down, but it needs decades to reach the ozone layer, where surprise it starts to act like a catalyst, splitting up ozone molecules.
So: What do we have?
A totally unnecessary niche product, making it necessary to launch 1,000s of fuel burning rockets into space in order to fill pockets of incredibly rich billionaires even more, causing a potentially deadly risk for plants, animals and people 30-100 years from now.
Capitalism at its finest
What we should do now, is to stop this madness of satellite internet immediately, until the risk is properly assessed and it can be done in a sustainable manner.
Of course: Not gonna happen!
There are huge business interests at stake, and humans are notoriously terrible at reacting to long term risks.
What we can do, is spread the word and say no to every enterprise controlled by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and other tech bros.
Sources and further reading:
https://www.spektrum.de/news/atmosphaere-vergluehende-satelliten-schaedigen-die-ozonschicht/2219587
https://jalopnik.com/dying-starlink-satellites-could-deplete-ozone-layer-st-1851544147
https://magazin.tu-braunschweig.de/en/m-post/burned-up-satellite-debris-could-deplete-ozone-layer
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