Technology

thankfully the us is the only country that has a sky so only their government’s approval is needed 😁👍

Let's beam down more heat! We totally need that on our rapidly heating planet.

This thing will never materialize. It's a vapor-project for stupid people to pour money into.

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.”

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?

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.

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.

fcc is not a science based department. they should have no say at all over environmental endeavors

Cartoon Country.

A very unserious place with very serious problems.

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.

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.

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

I recall in Futurama this didn't end well

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.

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.

https://www.reflectorbital.com/team

producing a beam roughly five kilometers wide.

Oh, nice, now they won't need these super expensive helicopters anymore to spot the fleeing ~~leftists~~ terrorists at night.

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...

!technology@lemmy.world

Eärendil-1

I really doubt Tolkien would be in favour of this.

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

It’ll look pretty cool burning up as it crashes…

orbiting debris will destroy the mirror so fast, plus solar winds.

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.