There are about 6 thousand Starlink satellites out there and their total count may grow to some 40 thousand in the future.
But even if we abstracted the LEO to just one sphere, it would be quite a bit BIGGER than the Earth alone.
If 40 thousand, say, small cars were distributed across the entire globe including oceans, would you call the result "unsustainable pollution"? In fact, compared to what we live in today, such a world would be positively pristine. We are used to having 40 thousand cars in every city of 80 thousand people, which is usually just a small dot on the map.
Space is big. Even near-Earth orbits are mindbogglingly huge. Even if there were millions of satellites on low Earth orbits, that space would still be several nines of vacuum.
Some people aren't smart enough to appreciate theory. These people don't even learn the hard way either. They take their disbelief and excuses to their grave. For the rest of us, good theories aren't just admired from afar, they're acted upon before they materialize.
"Appreciate" yes, but if you want to act on it by stopping a budding global industry in its tracks, I am afraid that the burden of proof is on you, not everyone else.
I would point out that it is in interests of the satellite owners to prevent their destruction, and that they act upon it already.
With some rules, the risk of satellites colliding can be significantly reduced, much like the risk of cars colliding in traffic.
Bro you "learned" this theory from popsci media, evidenced by your surface level understanding of it. Any debris in these orbits clears out in a few years, it's a complete non issue with this constellation.
I am aware it's a low orbit that clears faster, but some debris can still fly upward. And even a few years is quite enough to destroy everything in the low orbit.
Any debris that gains energy doesn't get circularized so it's perigee is still low and for that reason it still deorbits quickly.
If this happens, then LEO becomes uneconomical for unimportant satellites for a few years. If you really need a really important satellite in LEO you can still put it there and just eat the increased attrition rate. Higher orbits will still be fine, particularly very high orbits like GEO where you can put most really important satellites if you really need them. Kessler syndrome in LEO wrecks commercial operation of LEO satellites for a few years, that's it. It doesn't stop humanity from launching weather satellites, military and communication satellites, space probes, etc. If a satellite really matters to society, a higher attrition rate increases costs but we have the means to launch many replacements for relatively small amounts of money. It's quite literally a non issue.
Furthermore, it's not even likely to happen anyway because ground tracking of debris is very good and these satellites can modify their orbits or even preemptively deorbit themselves if the situation becomes too dicy. The most likely circumstance that causes Kessler syndrome is a major war in which many LEO satellites are rapidly and violently knocked out without warning. But if there's a major war kicking off, the cost to humanity will be so great that crying about satellite casualties will probably get you punched in the face for being so insensitive about people dying.
Significantly increasing perigee is pretty unlikely, though, and it is in the perigee where most of the braking action takes place. Highly elliptic orbits with low perigee are very unstable.
"And even a few years is quite enough to destroy everything in the low orbit."
That is precisely the assertion that I would at least like to see convincingly modeled. Because "enough to destroy everything" is a very big claim.
But even if we abstracted the LEO to just one sphere, it would be quite a bit BIGGER than the Earth alone.
If 40 thousand, say, small cars were distributed across the entire globe including oceans, would you call the result "unsustainable pollution"? In fact, compared to what we live in today, such a world would be positively pristine. We are used to having 40 thousand cars in every city of 80 thousand people, which is usually just a small dot on the map.
Space is big. Even near-Earth orbits are mindbogglingly huge. Even if there were millions of satellites on low Earth orbits, that space would still be several nines of vacuum.