If a cascading series of obliterations happens I could see us being trapped on Earth until some sort of technology is developed to navigate the debris field. Such idiocy allowing things like Starlink to begin with.

[–] herrvogel@lemmy.world 9 points 13 hours ago

They're in such a low orbit that they're barely staying in space already. You could explode all Starlink satellites right now and all their debris would naturally fall back into the atmosphere and leave the orbit clean in just a few years at most.

[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Trapped on earth? Just where do you think we are going to go? Contrary to what you have been told, we are no where near colonizing mars. Or cloud cities on venus, which is more practicable it appears to me. Society will fall apart long before we get there, glances at clock...

[–] neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 hours ago

I don't know if this is what the guy you're replying to meant, but I would also say that not being able to launch new satalites for things like GPS, internet, communications systems, telescopes, space missions, etc. would also qualify as trapping us on earth.

They're our eyes and ears in space, and we use them to work around needing to navigate the terrain on earth to communicate. It's always easier to bounce a signal off satellites than traverse ground terrain.