thankfully the us is the only country that has a sky so only their government’s approval is needed 😁👍
This is an important point, and partly why you’re not seeing ads up in the night sky just yet.
This thing will never materialize. It’s a vapor-project for stupid people to pour money into.
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?
They don’t have the literacy / abstract thinking necessary to understand themes and like the ‘vibes’ of nerdy things being cool now.
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.
If I recall he was pretty anti fascist
Like many other things today, Peter’s fault
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.
I support jettisoning corporations 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.
Reminds me of the horrific ending to the movie Hancock (2008)
fcc is not a science based department. they should have no say at all over environmental endeavors
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.
Does the EPA still exist?
Effectively not
Cartoon Country.
A very unserious place with very serious problems.
Naw, the Simpsons was implying a far more useful sun blocking device. What the mirror is has much more impact and is in space.
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.
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.)
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
“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!
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?
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.
Aren’t they worried that the bazillion of SpaceX satellites will cast shadows on their light beams?
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.
Oh, right. That’s fine then.
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.We have portable energy sources. They’re pretty efficient. Especially comparable to an orbital launch.
Illuminate construction sites? With a flare gun? They have lamps, you know. And yeah, also cheaper
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’m pretty sure I’ve heard about this a while ago and the math just doesn’t math.
There needs to be an international campaign to harass all of these people until they leave that company. Shame them.
tech bros/hoes solving invented problems.
Yes, because the one thing we really need is more heat on earth.
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…
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.
Eärendil-1
I really doubt Tolkien would be in favour of this.
