Discussion
And yeah, oh my goodness, there are SO MANY THINGS to fight against right now. Pick one and talk to your government reps about it! If you love the sky, pick this fight. If you love something else that's being destroyed, focus on that. If you have no spoons left, be yourself and fight by existing and thriving!
I'm happy to lead this fight. I hope it works. Thanks for reading and appreciating how incredibly fucking stupid space mirrors are.
@sundogplanets I love Quirks and Quarks. I love that show so much!
@sundogplanets @mayintoronto Oh one of my fav shows. Congrats!
Congratulations, @sundogplanets !
Well done, @mayintoronto !
@sundogplanets @mayintoronto AMAZING! Best show anywhere! Have fun.
@sundogplanets @mayintoronto
Great! Congratulations!
@sundogplanets @mayintoronto ahhhh!!!! Congrats!
Yanno, CBC should darn well be running a fedi presence for all their shows and venues. Quirks.cbc.ca would be an amazing fediverse locale.
@sundogplanets @mayintoronto ahhhh!!!! Congrats!
Yanno, CBC should darn well be running a fedi presence for all their shows and venues. Quirks.cbc.ca would be an amazing fediverse locale.
@sundogplanets @nev @mayintoronto WOOHOO!
YAAAAY! \o/💃💐🎉🤜🏻🤛🏼
@sundogplanets @mayintoronto no one deserves this more than you! Congrats
@sundogplanets @mayintoronto AWESOME! CONGRATS!! One of my fav CBC shows and Bob is from my hometown.
@sundogplanets @mayintoronto Sweet! QandQ for the win!
@sundogplanets YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! I'm glad you're getting the attention you so deserve. I hope you get to squeeze in a bit about exoplanets. :)
@sundogplanets @mayintoronto Congrats! How exciting!
I wish I got to go on Quirks and Quarks and talk about a less depressing topic, but hey, this is SUCH a great opportunity to teach a *lot* of people in Canada about the terrible things that are happening in orbit, and in the upper atmosphere, and on the ground due to the wildly unregulated commercialization of orbit.
Thank you!
Will you focus mostly on optical and upper atmosphere pollution (because easily tangle by laypeople) or also cover radio? Radio astronomers and hams are p****d about encroachment of the spectrum.
@sundogplanets You probably *should* use the opportunity to reach out to people (especially Americans) to just show up to the damn polls and vote so that these sort of brainless and dangerous projects don't get the green light in the first place.
I just sent probably the most pretentious email I've ever sent in my life to some colleagues: "I'd love to meet up for lunch! But my interview with Bob McDonald for Quirks and Quarks might get scheduled at that time."
(AAAAHHHH!!! SO EXCITED!!!)
@sundogplanets @researchfairy OK, that's a humble brag worth publicizing...
I just did my pre-interview for Quirks and Quarks. I am slightly less excited now, just because the pre-interview made it clear how completely fucking depressing this interview is going to be!
I have nothing good to say. I have no concrete actions for people to take. All I have are predictions about how unsafe, destructive, and environmentally catastrophic Reflect Orbital will be.
I sure hope I get a chance to work in something about how incredible the unpolluted night sky is, at least? Ooof.
@sundogplanets Would a good concrete action be to lobby our respective governments to make sure international space law keeps up with the crappy horrible shit techbros want to do in space? I think folks would be willing to write, but if space scientists and international law minds worked up petition or example letter language, it would help...
@ml Yeah, I am working on this! Too many fronts to fight - right now focusing on writing articles and getting interviewed. Getting governments on board is the next step in the fight.. thanks!
@sundogplanets you're right. It's hard to find a toe hold with start ups and seed, series A ventures (vultures). Esp since folks can't do shareholder activism. One action folks can do is to press their govt on why there are no planetary scientists on ROs *team*
The stars are still there, behind the clouds, satellites and light pollution, waiting for us.
Just got an email from a astronomer colleague who got asked by their local CBC station to do an interview tomorrow. "Do you know anything about Reflect Orbital?"
Hahah, sorry dude, it's sort of my fault that you have to talk about it. The campaign to reach out to journalists to educate the public about how terrible Reflect Orbital is is definitely working!
Going to add some pretty things to this thread.
Because today is Quirks and Quarks interview day(!!!), and at this point I'm about equal parts INCREDIBLY EXCITED to be on that show, and SUPER PISSED OFF that instead of getting to talk about cool astronomy research, I have to talk about a fucking stupid terrible techbro idea.
We're in a time when one tiny awful company in California can change the night sky for everyone in the world. The only tool I have to fight this is public opinion.
@sundogplanets
Beautiful.
I live in a city. I forget that the Milky Way can be seen like that.
The stars wait for no one, professor Lawler. It's up to us to catch them.
@sundogplanets Robert Reed, Beyond The Veil Of Stars
Good read. Hard to find
@sundogplanets ok but this is your periodic reminder of how important it was to see scientist activists when we were small
and now that we're big scientists we have to go be that for other people
even when it's depressing (which it almost always is, fuuuuuuuck)
💕
@sundogplanets more people will be aware of the issues and that’s good!
@sundogplanets @mayintoronto you'll be great! And it's McDonald's job to make you great :-)
@sundogplanets @mayintoronto perhaps … something constructive people can do is make others aware of the night sky?
What is a generative question folks could ask to start people thinking?
Just an idea.
Disclaimer: I am a professional asker of questions. It's a vocational hazard 😁.
As horrible as a Kessler syndrome would be it would put an end to all this sci-fi fantasy nonsense the super rich engaged in.
@sundogplanets I can imagine how difficult this will be for you, but I am so pleased that it is *you* talking about this on Q&Q and not Reflect Orbital.
@sundogplanets I've got a project like that and a potential co-author's response was that we needed to think of something to offer that went beyond just sadness
It's an interview about the night sky and stars, I'm sure there's a bright spot in there somewhere 😉
@sundogplanets yes, well, not every interview can be about quirks. Some have to be about quarks, and that is OK.
hope you do get an upside too but getting a big venue to let more folks learn about impending disasters has real value. hope it goes well for you.
@sundogplanets I would have done the exact same thing. Congrats!
Congratulations! 👏
We are big Bob McDonald fans in this house..
The response should be, "OMG, YOU'RE DOING *WHAT*?!?!?"
@sundogplanets In almost a year you could potentially top the pretention it with,
"I'd love to, but since it's Nobel week, I'd probably better stay close to the phone"
@sundogplanets "I hope this email finds you appropriately jealous. Please see the below humble-brag for more details."
But seriously congrats on this prestigious award!
@sundogplanets That is fantastic! Maybe YOU can get through to the Starlink subscribers in my life.
@sundogplanets I hope you ask for a minute to talk about the joys of astronomy. I think they will be receptive.
@sundogplanets Maybe you can sprinkle in a less depressing tidbit...
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