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Doesn't hitting one of them be good enough for chainlink reaction due to space debris? They are all on the same height and pretty close to each other.

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The debris field would move generally with its original momentum, meaning I wouldn’t expect hitting one to take out the others in the same string.

If you're hitting it with a rocket the explosion should considerably change the momentum, no?

But not that it's really relevant anyway, these things are not close to each other at all in this context.

Hitting it with anything at those speeds causes and explosion. At low earth orbit (LEO) most vectors cause the debris to rapidly deorbit, but a few can cause a slightly raised orbit that could hit things behind it. The problem is, if such a chain reaction does start, it's not likely limited to a single orbital plane like starling, but to destroy every single LEO satellite and make LEO unusable for tens of not hundreds of years.

I'm not sure I would call 1600 objects scattered over an area about as large as the surface of earth "pretty close together". There's plenty of empty space between them

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