It's weird....

[conuly]

But when I think about the fact that the Mars Rover and those footprints on the moon will be in those places long after everybody's dead and gone, I feel a moderate sense of comfort about this... which is the exact opposite of what I feel when I think about the fact that a garbage bag full of glitter will also be wherever it was dumped long after the people who threw it out are all dead and gone.

And logically speaking I ought to feel the same way about space litter as I do about terrestrial litter, but I just can't do it.

******************

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Comments

[siliconshaman]

Even when the sun burns out, and what's left of the planets are cold dead cinders (neatly taking care of all that glitter) Voyagers 1 & 2 will still be out there, tiny little markers to say "We were here."

[conuly]

I have never been anywhere near where Voyagers 1 and 2 are, except when the scale is so stretched out as to be useless.

[siliconshaman]

Well... more like we were over there I suppose.... but they do carry a plaque that gives a positional fix for Earth.

The sun turning into a red giant would destroy any trace of us in the solar system, but they'll be so far away by that point it wouldn't even be visible.

[dark_phoenix54]

The space litter (except for the car that moron Musk sent off into space) will eventually fall out of orbit and burn up before most of it hits ground. So I'm not too worried about it, as long as we don't keep putting more and more of it up there (once again, I look evilly at our Lord and Master Musk)

[conuly]

Nitpick, everything I mentioned as space litter is on Mars or the Moon and not in orbit.

[siliconshaman]

Musk's car will eventually end up on Mars, or possibly Earth.... or just possibly splatted against an asteroid. It's in an eccentric Earth-Mars crossing orbit that loops out as far as the edges of the asteroid belt. You can find exact details here.

Probably won't be much left of it at that point though.

[brokenallbroken]

As far as we know, moon litter isn't screwing up an ecosystem. Bags of glitter do long-term material damage to many living things. You should feel worse about things that do greater harm!

And from a more philosophical(?) perspective: glitter is frivolous bullshit. The Mars rovers and flags are markers of collective human extreme endeavors.

[minoanmiss]

Well said. makes a note

[sallymn]

Oh I am with you on the 'litter'. I sometimes wonder if, long after humanity is gone, some aliens see that footprint and think "what?????"

[conuly]

"Honestly, everywhere you go, somebody was there before...!"

[hazard]

Thank you for the link to the story about the Trans clinic ❤️

[conuly]

:)