Well let's run with that. If you put a single mosquito in my house, I would have a higher ratio of mosquito to air than low earth orbit currently has in its ratio of satellites to empty space. (Seriously)
It's easy to remove any number of mosquitos from your house, 1 person and a swatter can get it done. It's incredibly expensive, laborious and dangers to remove LEO satellites. If something malfunctions then it's essentially a stuck there until shot or nudged down.
Well, it wasn't my metaphor, I'm not really defending it.
That said, you do seem to have missed the point of a metaphor. Nobody is arguing that mosquitos in a house are more of a problem than satellites... Comparing the two directly was not anyone's intention.
Sure it wasn't a great comparison in the first place. What I'm trying to communicate is that astronomers already have to deal with space trash as is, it's a legitimate problem to their observations. Having a giant object to reflect potentially, and without constant upkeep certainly, become especially large space trash. Removing faulty equipment is already an inefficient expensive process. Everything becomes depreciatied at some point. I'm just hoping if this type of project comes to pass that it also has an plan in case of accident or insolvency.
Yeah that's true, calculating the actual collision risk is a whole different thing.
It was really just a joke, cause you know space is bigger and more empty than most people realize. Because what I said was "technically" true, if not super meaningful in any way.
That said, orbit isn't too crowded yet, more is definitely going up, a lot more. Truth be told, 50 years from now, the number of satellites orbiting earth could easily be in the hundreds of thousands.
But a chain reaction in low earth orbit is generally short lived, atmospheric drag clears that up. A chain reaction in high earth orbit is exponentially less likely to happen. It's the medium orbits to worry about, luckily they're less popular for now, but as LEO fills up, they'll likely start to be used more.
Although this would also enable the alternate scenario of reducing incoming sunlight simply by turning them around. This project both doesn't think far enough and much too far at the same time.
Also, we would need to finally abolish borders and create a world government for effective usage of such systems; this would enable the designation of areas where supercharged amounts of solar power are collected 24/7, while reducing solar input to areas experiencing heat waves.
It'll only make a difference during the times in which it is being hit by a beam that wouldn't otherwise hit the earth, since whatever it reflects will be offset by some shadow behind it. I wonder if, as a matter of orbital mechanics, it would be possible to make the satellite orbit in such a way so that it never casts a shadow and is always in the sunlight.
The Federal Communications Commission approved Reflect Orbital’s plan to launch Eärendil-1, an experimental satellite carrying an 18-meter-wide reflective surface. The mirror would redirect sunlight toward a targeted area after dark, producing a beam roughly five kilometers wide.
The July 9 authorization applies to one demonstration satellite, not the enormous constellation the California company eventually hopes to build. Reflect Orbital has described plans for more than 50,000 mirrors by 2035, creating what it calls “sunlight on demand.”
People also said A.I. wouldn't happen. I don't trust them to not find some way to implement it in the worst possible way that impacts all of humanity. Like permanent daylight or something so there's never time to sleep but now there's 12 more hours in the day
They're still limited by the laws of physics and geometry. Assuming perfect reflection and perfect alignment with the sun to the target destination you're looking at something like 0.1 percent of the total brightness worth of energy being transmitted to the surface of the earth.
In other words, considerably dimmer than the moon. It's not going to turn night to day, it's not even going to turn at night to dusk, it will be the brightness of a crescent moon on an overcast night, assuming clear conditions. Covering an area of less than 3 km for a period of time of less than 20 minutes (increase the orbital altitude and you increase the amount of time that you can be over an area but you also decrease the brightness) I don't think Mr Badger is really going to notice.
But as I said this is irrelevant because they know this which is why they're not going to do it.
I agree with you that the current thing seems innocuous enough… but I think we've all been traumatised by recent events. Things have had a way of escalating extremely quickly, like: "oh yeah, we just approved 10,000 more satellites without even giving the general public a chance to react, so what?" Also, someone should coin that anime name.
It’s a 50k constellation or some proportion that’s the problem. Also it’s who gets to approve such a monstrous plan? Surely not a national government as it is an international issue.
Also it’s who gets to approve such a monstrous plan?
The FCC. It's in the title. There's more detail in the article if you want.
Surely not a national government as it is an international issue.
Satellites have always been regulated by the nation they're launched from or owned by. There are international treaties regulating some aspects of that, but treaties are implemented by their signatories - the national governments.
My point is why the FCC? It is a US government entity and as the current US government is pretty rabid, why should they be able to inflict this sort of thing on the the rest of the world? Maybe this will be a straw too many and force change. The whole Starlink debacle is bad enough but to add huge mirrors is just madness.
Last time a proposal like this made the rounds on the Internet stirring up consternation, the proposal was to use space mirrors to replace the street lighting for the Chinese city of Chengdu. It would have had no net effect on light pollution and would have reduced electricity consumption to boot.
Bear in mind, this mirror focuses its light on a specific 5km-diameter patch of land. It won't be visible elsewhere.
The visibility doesn't consider the massive glow that would appear to anyone seeing them outside their intended area of use due to reflections off dust and particles in the atmosphere. Light pollution goes far outside the area where cities are for the same reason, and having these in low earth orbit as a replacement for streetlights or as a spotlight would both have that happening.
I was not thinking about combining the beans, but about the surface that 50k of them would cover and the amount of additional light that would represent. I do hope it's just some vaporware.
Why would they spread the light evenly? They're planning on selling it. Someone would need to pay them to have a place illuminated, it's not going to be randomly beamed all over.
Again you're implying something I didn't mean, but the point is that having 50k times the equivalent of the moon light intensity is expected to have a bad impact on the environment.
Oh not this again. I agree the it sets a stupid precedent but the act itself is irrelevant.
Far apart from the fact that it's only going to be over any given area of the earth for about a minute tops, but also pointless because it's only 18 m wide, so you won't be paying for sunlight, you'll be paying for a random spec in the sky to be switched on.
This is all a giant con where they're trying to get a bunch of investment money from idiots that don't know basic physics but do have a lot of money. I'd actually put a reasonable amount of money on this never actually launching.
Why the fuck is every dystopian industrialist naming their shit after Tolkein? Does an artificial moon designed to fuck the natural order sound like something he would want to endorse?
Elon likely never read Foundation, and it's frustrating that he's getting credit for it.
I do firmly put that on the people not doing their research, though. We should absolutely be bullying the shit out of people for being disingenuous in this way.
There's a lot of fuckery afoot as far as space goes. There are even companies trying to get world governments to allow them to put satellites in space so ads can be beamed into the night sky. I made a video about it if anyone's bored.
The good news is that the scientific community fought back hard against it. You never understand how badass astronomers are until you read up on corporations trying to arse themselves into space.
For as long as there has been humankind, we have gazed up at the night sky, for comfort, for romance, for meditation, for curiosity, etc. It has been a core human experience, evolutionarily hard-wired into our humanity and psyche.
Now these Sociopathic Ferengi are going to steal that experience from every future human being, for profit.
The illumination would last only a few minutes at one location before the mirror required repointing. Reflect Orbital says the technology could extend solar power production after sunset, illuminate construction areas and assist rescue teams working in darkness.
Flare guns already do this for a lot cheaper. They even come in a choice of colours.
The company has also argued that reflected sunlight could provide temporary lighting without diesel generators or permanent ground infrastructure.
Sure it just requires that you build a giant precision mirror array, launch it into orbit, and then constantly monitor and position it from the ground, but god damn if you won't need a bulky, polluting flashlight ever again.
What an absolute fucking joke of a proposal. Yeah, let's blanket the earth in mirrors so that we can light up some random construction site temporarily.
heaven forbid you need to illuminate two completely different areas of earth simultaneously. is this is the least cost efficient solar powered device ever?
Well, it's true that if you need to illuminate a site for two and a half minutes but can't build anything on the ground, it's a great solution. Is it the best solution? Maybe not. Is it a solution? You bet it is.
If god wanted me to use lamps, god would've invented a 'lamp gun'. Since He didn't, we're just gonna have to make do with the tools god did give us, now pass me the lite beer and cover your ears - it's illuminating time.
I was just postulating to a friend, that if we built a huge array of solar panels, set out in a pattern not unlike solar sails, and deployed them out in-between the Earth and the Sun, we could block an appreciable amount of heat, which might act as a way to slow down climate change on our planet. Additionally this array could be connected in a grid, making it a huge space station, and energy source, where we could potentially use it as a base to start collecting and mining asteroids.
And then I read about these dumb mother fuckers who want to redirect sunlight back at the earth, making climate change worse, all to replace a couple flood lights? How fucking stupid is the person who brought this to reality? Jesus fucking christ.
"Geoengineering and Weather Modification Activities" illegal.
That's only when "the Jews TM" do it. When its capitalism then fine! See they are still spewing carbon into the atmosphere in Florida but they haven't banned internal combustion engines, and they keep burning coal!
We know this ain't gonna happen (precisely because of a pesky thing called "laws of physics"), but it's surely paving the way for similar deranged ideas such as "orbital data centers", as this "Sun-as-a-Service" bullshittery moves the Overton window to where techbros want it to be, as well to (failed) attempts on pretending the laws of physics can be bent to capitalist interests.
Even sadder is seeing how other regulatory and space agencies worldwide (你好, 国家航天局! नमस्ते, अंतरिक्ष विभाग!) seem to be so quiet in this regard, as if all these deranged techbro ideas wouldn't affect the skies over there...
I read about 20 years ago that they were doing this "satellite mirror" thing in Norway in a town nestled between two mountains that rarely saw any sun. I thought it was feasible and incredible and I believed it at the time. After reading this I see I was a victim of even more bullshit claims. Thankfully I only told about fifteen people about this so, not too much fake news damage done.
i wonder how easy it would be to build something that can reach the orbit and collide with the damn thing to deorbit it, if this nightmare ever becomes reality
unrelated question. if you focus thousands of medium or low wattage lasers to a single point, will their wattage combine to equal that of a high powered laser?
Constructive dialogue can allow for new technology to succeed without stepping on too many toes. That's the important role social media plays in society-impacting inventions and plans.
130 Comments
switcheroo@lemmy.world · 119 pts · 15d
Let's beam down more heat! We totally need that on our rapidly heating planet.
undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch · 63 pts · 15d
And while we’re at it let’s just push even more shit above the earth because there’s totally not already a whole bunch of stuff up there.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world · -12 pts · 14d
Well, technically there really isn't much up there now.
I mean in low earth orbit it's what, 99.999999999999999999999 % empty space? With the tiny fraction left being satellites.
chunes@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 14d
By that logic you wouldn't mind if I loosed a bag of mosquitos in your house, would you?
undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch · 2 pts · 14d
I love this comment so much and I love “loosed” as a past tense verb even more.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 14d
Well let's run with that. If you put a single mosquito in my house, I would have a higher ratio of mosquito to air than low earth orbit currently has in its ratio of satellites to empty space. (Seriously)
inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
It's easy to remove any number of mosquitos from your house, 1 person and a swatter can get it done. It's incredibly expensive, laborious and dangers to remove LEO satellites. If something malfunctions then it's essentially a stuck there until shot or nudged down.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 11d
Well, it wasn't my metaphor, I'm not really defending it.
That said, you do seem to have missed the point of a metaphor. Nobody is arguing that mosquitos in a house are more of a problem than satellites... Comparing the two directly was not anyone's intention.
inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 11d
Sure it wasn't a great comparison in the first place. What I'm trying to communicate is that astronomers already have to deal with space trash as is, it's a legitimate problem to their observations. Having a giant object to reflect potentially, and without constant upkeep certainly, become especially large space trash. Removing faulty equipment is already an inefficient expensive process. Everything becomes depreciatied at some point. I'm just hoping if this type of project comes to pass that it also has an plan in case of accident or insolvency.
alsimoneau@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 14d
That's disingenuous though. You have to compute the orbital tube volume to account for the collision risks.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 14d
Yeah that's true, calculating the actual collision risk is a whole different thing.
It was really just a joke, cause you know space is bigger and more empty than most people realize. Because what I said was "technically" true, if not super meaningful in any way.
That said, orbit isn't too crowded yet, more is definitely going up, a lot more. Truth be told, 50 years from now, the number of satellites orbiting earth could easily be in the hundreds of thousands.
alsimoneau@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 13d
We're at what, close to 20k right now?
Won't take 50 years.
And not every orbit is equally useful. Near misses are getting more frequent, and it only takes 1 to start a chain reaction.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 13d
But a chain reaction in low earth orbit is generally short lived, atmospheric drag clears that up. A chain reaction in high earth orbit is exponentially less likely to happen. It's the medium orbits to worry about, luckily they're less popular for now, but as LEO fills up, they'll likely start to be used more.
alsimoneau@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 12d
Even if short lived it would still be devastating.
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus · 18 pts · 15d
Although this would also enable the alternate scenario of reducing incoming sunlight simply by turning them around. This project both doesn't think far enough and much too far at the same time.
Also, we would need to finally abolish borders and create a world government for effective usage of such systems; this would enable the designation of areas where supercharged amounts of solar power are collected 24/7, while reducing solar input to areas experiencing heat waves.
GamingChairModel@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
It'll only make a difference during the times in which it is being hit by a beam that wouldn't otherwise hit the earth, since whatever it reflects will be offset by some shadow behind it. I wonder if, as a matter of orbital mechanics, it would be possible to make the satellite orbit in such a way so that it never casts a shadow and is always in the sunlight.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 13d
Lets send that heat down in a large vertical column piercing the entire way thru the atmosphere!
Birds can cook themselves in it!
Nobody will get rained on near this beam, so less big money tied up in umbrellas!
And think of the tornados that will form!
This thing will create the need for so much progress to undo its effects!
Brilliant!
carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 90 pts · 15d
thankfully the us is the only country that has a sky so only their government’s approval is needed 😁👍
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world · 37 pts · 15d
This is an important point, and partly why you're not seeing ads up in the night sky just yet.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 72 pts · 15d
arctanthrope@lemmy.world · 129 pts · 15d
oh cool, more supervillains appropriating Tolkien
danekrae@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 15d
Servants of Morgoth.
FaceDeer@fedia.io · 1 pts · 14d
Quite the opposite. The Star of Eärendil was a guardian of the Doors of Night, through which Morgoth was banished.
It was light from Eärendil, stored in the Phial of Galadirel, that was instrumental in defeating Shelob in Lord of the Rings.
danekrae@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 14d
So the supervillains appropriating Tolkien are not the servants of Morgoth, or is one of us misunderstanding?
FaceDeer@fedia.io · -3 pts · 14d
There are no "supervillains" and Morgoth is a fictional character, so yes, one of us is misunderstanding.
danekrae@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
Clearly...
FaceDeer@fedia.io · 14 pts · 15d
"Sunlight on demand" is an exaggeration. The plan is to create a 5km spot of 0.1 lux, which is a bit brighter than a full moon.
Every time I've seen this news posted (and I've seen it a lot over the past few days) everyone has leapt to some very extreme conclusions.
Greyghoster@aussie.zone · 60 pts · 15d
Not really extreme. The whole concept is bonkers. What right has a company to destroy the night huge numbers of people and not mention wildlife.
echodot@feddit.uk · 19 pts · 15d
Don't worry it's not going to happen. They're just after investor money then they'll vanish.
Even if they actually build this, a very small area of the planet is going to be imperceptibly brighter for 35 seconds.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · 8 pts · 15d
People also said A.I. wouldn't happen. I don't trust them to not find some way to implement it in the worst possible way that impacts all of humanity. Like permanent daylight or something so there's never time to sleep but now there's 12 more hours in the day
echodot@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 15d
They're still limited by the laws of physics and geometry. Assuming perfect reflection and perfect alignment with the sun to the target destination you're looking at something like 0.1 percent of the total brightness worth of energy being transmitted to the surface of the earth.
In other words, considerably dimmer than the moon. It's not going to turn night to day, it's not even going to turn at night to dusk, it will be the brightness of a crescent moon on an overcast night, assuming clear conditions. Covering an area of less than 3 km for a period of time of less than 20 minutes (increase the orbital altitude and you increase the amount of time that you can be over an area but you also decrease the brightness) I don't think Mr Badger is really going to notice.
But as I said this is irrelevant because they know this which is why they're not going to do it.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 15d
I agree with you that the current thing seems innocuous enough… but I think we've all been traumatised by recent events. Things have had a way of escalating extremely quickly, like: "oh yeah, we just approved 10,000 more satellites without even giving the general public a chance to react, so what?" Also, someone should coin that anime name.
cosmOS@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 15d
FaceDeer@fedia.io · -24 pts · 15d
It's a 5km diameter target area. It's not going to be shining on random patches of wilderness.
Rug_Pisser@piefed.zip · 9 pts · 15d
That's just for one mirror, they're saying they want fifty thousand up there.
FaceDeer@fedia.io · -5 pts · 15d
But they only have approval for one.
Greyghoster@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 15d
It’s a 50k constellation or some proportion that’s the problem. Also it’s who gets to approve such a monstrous plan? Surely not a national government as it is an international issue.
FaceDeer@fedia.io · -3 pts · 15d
The FCC. It's in the title. There's more detail in the article if you want.
Satellites have always been regulated by the nation they're launched from or owned by. There are international treaties regulating some aspects of that, but treaties are implemented by their signatories - the national governments.
Greyghoster@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 14d
My point is why the FCC? It is a US government entity and as the current US government is pretty rabid, why should they be able to inflict this sort of thing on the the rest of the world? Maybe this will be a straw too many and force change. The whole Starlink debacle is bad enough but to add huge mirrors is just madness.
oce@jlai.lu · 12 pts · 15d
That would be multiplied by 50k according to their plan, wouldn't it? That's a lot of moons.
FaceDeer@fedia.io · -13 pts · 15d
It would be completely impossible for them to all focus on the same spot, they'd be distributed around the world.
Also, that's not been approved. This approval is for a single prototype.
SmackemWittadic@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 15d
The amount of light pollution we have from cities is already more than necessary given that it covers makes most stars impossible to see.
I don't think a large quantity of small fake moons is gonna help with that.
FaceDeer@fedia.io · -11 pts · 15d
Last time a proposal like this made the rounds on the Internet stirring up consternation, the proposal was to use space mirrors to replace the street lighting for the Chinese city of Chengdu. It would have had no net effect on light pollution and would have reduced electricity consumption to boot.
Bear in mind, this mirror focuses its light on a specific 5km-diameter patch of land. It won't be visible elsewhere.
SmackemWittadic@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 15d
The visibility doesn't consider the massive glow that would appear to anyone seeing them outside their intended area of use due to reflections off dust and particles in the atmosphere. Light pollution goes far outside the area where cities are for the same reason, and having these in low earth orbit as a replacement for streetlights or as a spotlight would both have that happening.
oce@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 15d
I was not thinking about combining the beans, but about the surface that 50k of them would cover and the amount of additional light that would represent. I do hope it's just some vaporware.
FaceDeer@fedia.io · -3 pts · 15d
Why would they spread the light evenly? They're planning on selling it. Someone would need to pay them to have a place illuminated, it's not going to be randomly beamed all over.
oce@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 14d
Again you're implying something I didn't mean, but the point is that having 50k times the equivalent of the moon light intensity is expected to have a bad impact on the environment.
Master167@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 14d
Why is the FCC approving anything related to space?
takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 14d
To make it look like it went through some kind of evaluation done by experts, instead trump just saying it is ok after a payment.
echodot@feddit.uk · 45 pts · 15d
Oh not this again. I agree the it sets a stupid precedent but the act itself is irrelevant.
Far apart from the fact that it's only going to be over any given area of the earth for about a minute tops, but also pointless because it's only 18 m wide, so you won't be paying for sunlight, you'll be paying for a random spec in the sky to be switched on.
This is all a giant con where they're trying to get a bunch of investment money from idiots that don't know basic physics but do have a lot of money. I'd actually put a reasonable amount of money on this never actually launching.
Godric@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 15d
Why the fuck is every dystopian industrialist naming their shit after Tolkein? Does an artificial moon designed to fuck the natural order sound like something he would want to endorse?
turmacar@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 14d
They don't have the literacy / abstract thinking necessary to understand themes and like the 'vibes' of nerdy things being cool now.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 13d
These corporate jerks see themselves as Aragorn but in reality they're Wormtongue
Mearcfara@lemmy.ml · 9 pts · 14d
Elon likely never read Foundation, and it's frustrating that he's getting credit for it.
I do firmly put that on the people not doing their research, though. We should absolutely be bullying the shit out of people for being disingenuous in this way.
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 14d
If I recall he was pretty anti fascist
cheat700000007@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 13d
Like many other things today, Peter's fault
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world · 38 pts · 15d
There's a lot of fuckery afoot as far as space goes. There are even companies trying to get world governments to allow them to put satellites in space so ads can be beamed into the night sky. I made a video about it if anyone's bored.
The good news is that the scientific community fought back hard against it. You never understand how badass astronomers are until you read up on corporations trying to arse themselves into space.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 14d
I support jettisoning corporations into space.
MajesticTechie@feddit.uk · 33 pts · 15d
I recall in Futurama this didn't end well
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 8 pts · 15d
also in INVINCIBLE.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 14d
fcc is not a science based department. they should have no say at all over environmental endeavors
chiliedogg@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 14d
They don't, which is why they can't prohibit this satellite. It meets all their requirements regarding radio interference.
The Satellite should absolutely be stopped, but the FCC isn't the agency to do it.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 13d
Does the EPA still exist?
cheat700000007@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 13d
Effectively not
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org · 26 pts · 15d
Oh, nice, now they won't need these super expensive helicopters anymore to spot the fleeing
leftiststerrorists at night.brem@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 15d
A small beam a bit brighter than a full moon...
Sounds to me like they want to give a suntan to the coven of witches living in my forest grove.
dubyakay@lemmy.ca · 25 pts · 14d
This thing will never materialize. It's a vapor-project for stupid people to pour money into.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 24 pts · 14d
Cartoon Country.
A very unserious place with very serious problems.
M0oP0o@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 14d
Naw, the Simpsons was implying a far more useful sun blocking device. What the mirror is has much more impact and is in space.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 23 pts · 14d
For as long as there has been humankind, we have gazed up at the night sky, for comfort, for romance, for meditation, for curiosity, etc. It has been a core human experience, evolutionarily hard-wired into our humanity and psyche.
Now these Sociopathic Ferengi are going to steal that experience from every future human being, for profit.
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 14d
Reminds me of the horrific ending to the movie Hancock (2008)
aproposnix@piefed.social · 23 pts · 15d
There needs to be an international campaign to harass all of these people until they leave that company. Shame them.
https://www.reflectorbital.com/team
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
tech bros/hoes solving invented problems.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 15d
Flare guns already do this for a lot cheaper. They even come in a choice of colours.
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 15d
Sure it just requires that you build a giant precision mirror array, launch it into orbit, and then constantly monitor and position it from the ground, but god damn if you won't need a bulky, polluting flashlight ever again.
What an absolute fucking joke of a proposal. Yeah, let's blanket the earth in mirrors so that we can light up some random construction site temporarily.
friend_of_satan@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 15d
heaven forbid you need to illuminate two completely different areas of earth simultaneously. is this is the least cost efficient solar powered device ever?
Crozekiel@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 14d
Oh, no, don't worry about that, this is just a test to see if it works... They plan to put 50,000 of these things in orbit.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
Aren't they worried that the bazillion of SpaceX satellites will cast shadows on their light beams?
Crozekiel@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 14d
I don't think they are that worried, since their plan is basically just to use pseudo-science magic words to remove money from investors.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
Oh, right. That's fine then.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
Well, it's true that if you need to illuminate a site for two and a half minutes but can't build anything on the ground, it's a
greatsolution. Is it the best solution? Maybe not. Is it a solution? You bet it is.zqps@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 14d
We have portable energy sources. They're pretty efficient. Especially comparable to an orbital launch.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 15d
Illuminate construction sites? With a flare gun? They have lamps, you know. And yeah, also cheaper
Warl0k3@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
If god wanted me to use lamps, god would've invented a 'lamp gun'. Since He didn't, we're just gonna have to make do with the tools god did give us, now pass me the lite beer and cover your ears - it's illuminating time.
jpreston2005@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 14d
I was just postulating to a friend, that if we built a huge array of solar panels, set out in a pattern not unlike solar sails, and deployed them out in-between the Earth and the Sun, we could block an appreciable amount of heat, which might act as a way to slow down climate change on our planet. Additionally this array could be connected in a grid, making it a huge space station, and energy source, where we could potentially use it as a base to start collecting and mining asteroids.
And then I read about these dumb mother fuckers who want to redirect sunlight back at the earth, making climate change worse, all to replace a couple flood lights? How fucking stupid is the person who brought this to reality? Jesus fucking christ.
nullify3112@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 14d
Someone needs to read the Dyson Sphere paper: https://archive.org/download/dyson-1960-search-for-artificial-stellar-sources-of-infrared
(The paper was written as a sarcastic take on SETI sinking money into frivolous research of extra-terrestrial intelligence.)
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 14d
So uh... Florida made "Geoengineering and Weather Modification Activities" illegal.
So are they going to launch that into space from another state, because one would think launching such out of cape canaveral would be off limits
T00l_shed@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 14d
That's only when "the Jews TM" do it. When its capitalism then fine! See they are still spewing carbon into the atmosphere in Florida but they haven't banned internal combustion engines, and they keep burning coal!
dsilverz@catodon.rocks · 19 pts · 15d
We know this ain't gonna happen (precisely because of a pesky thing called "laws of physics"), but it's surely paving the way for similar deranged ideas such as "orbital data centers", as this "Sun-as-a-Service" bullshittery moves the Overton window to where techbros want it to be, as well to (failed) attempts on pretending the laws of physics can be bent to capitalist interests.
Even sadder is seeing how other regulatory and space agencies worldwide (你好, 国家航天局! नमस्ते, अंतरिक्ष विभाग!) seem to be so quiet in this regard, as if all these deranged techbro ideas wouldn't affect the skies over there...
!technology@lemmy.world
msage@programming.dev · 6 pts · 15d
It worked many times before - utterly deranged ideas drowned in borrowed money until it worked, or they just cashed out.
Look no further than LLMs.
l3mming@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 15d
Yes, because the one thing we really need is more heat on earth.
Deebster@infosec.pub · 18 pts · 15d
I really doubt Tolkien would be in favour of this.
Someone8765210932@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 14d
I'm pretty sure I've heard about this a while ago and the math just doesn't math.
modestmeme@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 15d
It’ll look pretty cool burning up as it crashes…
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 11 pts · 15d
orbiting debris will destroy the mirror so fast, plus solar winds.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 15d
I read about 20 years ago that they were doing this "satellite mirror" thing in Norway in a town nestled between two mountains that rarely saw any sun. I thought it was feasible and incredible and I believed it at the time. After reading this I see I was a victim of even more bullshit claims. Thankfully I only told about fifteen people about this so, not too much fake news damage done.
dan1101@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 15d
A Norway town did do that according to the BBC, but the mirrors were on a mountain not in space: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170314-the-town-that-built-a-mirror-to-catch-the-sun
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 15d
Cool! Thanks. I've either got a bad memory or just scanned the article while in a hurry.
xthexder@l.sw0.com · 3 pts · 14d
Wow, that's like 1000x more practical than putting them in space
BandDad@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 15d
I feel like this the start of daylight/nighttime subscriptions...
Sir_Premiumhengst@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 15d
Bro, do you even diverge?
I'll leave a relevant xkcd here https://what-if.xkcd.com/145/
GarboDog@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 15d
What?! Nooo we thought that was a fucking joke wtf????
reksas@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 14d
i wonder how easy it would be to build something that can reach the orbit and collide with the damn thing to deorbit it, if this nightmare ever becomes reality
20cello@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 15d
Of course this will benefit the whole planet...
Samsy@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 15d
Damn, that's the timeline where the world got destroyed by a giant laser beam. Well, have a good time, I need to go.
TipRing@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 14d
It would be a lot cheaper and easier to just stop burning fossil fuels. We could just take the money for this and invest in renewables.
Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 14d
Sure but capitalists want to own the sun for renewables.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 13d
Put up portable solar panels in a park and watch people loose their mind that you are getting something for free (minus cost of panels and battery).
People will literally stand there trying to find a law you are breaking.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 14d
If only we had these things called electric lights.
Etterra@discuss.online · 5 pts · 14d
I live in the city man, I'm not going to notice shit.
rotkehle@feddit.org · 5 pts · 15d
space lasers starting wildfires again? /s
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 14d
Yah, I can't see anything that could go wrong with this. /s
DasSkelett@discuss.tchncs.de · 6 pts · 14d
Emphasis on I can't see anything
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 15d
One. Which is a venture grift anyway. They know they can't approve space mirrors.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
unrelated question. if you focus thousands of medium or low wattage lasers to a single point, will their wattage combine to equal that of a high powered laser?
jumjummy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 14d
Relevant xkcd
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14d
this is great!
then again, this thing will be much closer to LEO than the moon, but it would probably still take billions of people to do it to have any impact.
🤷 guess we're just going to need to work on surface to air anti-material projectiles.
jjlinux@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 15d
Lol, this is sure to flop in spectacular fashion 🤣
PierceTheBubble@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 14d
Spotlight, uh, moonlight, uh, eyesore get your fucking aim right 🎶
WecottNow@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 14d
Constructive dialogue can allow for new technology to succeed without stepping on too many toes. That's the important role social media plays in society-impacting inventions and plans.