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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • No, it couldn’t. That’s pure misinformation.

    Kessler syndrome is only a possibility in orbits high enough that atmospheric drag is negligible. Starlink, by design, is at an altitude where the atmosphere is still thick enough to bring any debris or old satellites down to earth in a timely fashion rather than building up like Kessler syndrome requires. (To be clear, the air is still so thin that you’d need sensitive instruments to detect it at all. It’s just enough to produce a tiny amount of drag, which adds up over weeks or months to lower the debris’ orbit so that it meets thicker air)

    There are plenty of perfectly legitimate objections you can raise to starlink without resorting to Kessler syndrome






  • They will have some kind of pressure relief valve, to let steam out and prevent an explosion. They only become dangerous if that valve isn’t working (assuming that whatever keeps the lid on is intact and still strong).

    Look for damage around the seal between the pot and the lid, and look for damage to the clamp or latch which holds the lid down against that seal.

    Then look at the valve. It’ll probably be a heavy object (such as a lump of metal) which sits on top of a hole of some sort, or it could possibly be something spring loaded. Either way, check that it moves freely.

    After that the only additional thing you could do is a pressure test, where you basically deliberately overpressurise it and see if it explodes, but if you had the means to do that safely then you wouldn’t be asking for advice here so I don’t recommend it.