Discussion
It's becoming increasingly clear to me that Reflect Orbital's fucking stupid giant mirror satellite, with absolutely NOTHING useful to offer, which will cause countless safety issues, ecological disasters, and destroy the night sky, is going to launch.
A bunch of astronomers and I have sent out a fact sheet about them to a bunch of journalists, but very few are going to write about this. So, let me try posting it all here.
Here's what I know about Reflect Orbital and all the downsides:
Apropos of nothing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_submersible_implosion
People with such dumb ideas tend to be pretty dumb. They tend to ignore the experts they hire and "move fast and break shit". But moving fast and breaking shit *IN SPACE* (as well as *AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN*) doesn't, um, work very well?
I'll be surprised if they can deploy without trying 50 times.
@sundogplanets who knew this would be the millennium for ACTUAL FUCKING BOND VILLAINS
@sundogplanets I hope they mention the work, including an actual mirror in orbit, the Soviets did back in the 60s and early 70s.
@sundogplanets FML. Last week they wanted to block out the sun. This week they're reflecting it around. These supervillains could at least make up their minds and focus on one evil plan at a time.
Holy fuck. I had not heard about this. What the actual fuck. WHAT THE FUCK??????!!!!
It’s like no one ever read any cautionary sci-fi, ever.
@sundogplanets It's a pure scam. 4 minutes of slightly brighter night? Who would pay for that?
Their investors are getting rinsed, and I bet most of them haven't realised it yet.
@sundogplanets what baffles me the most is also the fact that the FCC (an american regulatory body) seems to be the only one able to accept or refuse that project...
What about all the other countries where these statellites would be passing by?
(also, thanks for the thread, very insightful)
@sundogplanets @annaleen have you seen this ridiculousness?
@sundogplanets have you tried contacting Scott Manley?
@sundogplanets I appreciate the effort; this is very well put together. One bit of feedback, if I may: I think it would improve our odds of success if we could articulate how this project will fuck over rich people specifically. Not just the stuff that affects all of us, but negative effects this will have predominantly on the ultra wealthy.
Because the people with the money call the shots now. Not the people with the good ideas. Not the people with the big hearts. The ones with the money.
Reflect Orbital (RO) https://www.reflectorbital.com/ wants customers to pay them to reflect beams of sunlight down from
orbit. This is called “sunlight as a service.”
Their initial plan is for each beam to be several times as bright as the full moon and at least 5 km in diameter on the ground.
https://www.darkskyconsulting.com/blog/the-dangers-of-sunlight-as-a-service
Due to the high speed needed to orbit Earth, each satellite will shine on one point for only
a few minutes at most (Reflect Orbital says 4 minutes https://thetundradrums.com/reflect-orbital-order-sunlight/)
@sundogplanets sunlight as a service is such a dystopian cyberpunk concept
@sundogplanets I would not invest a single dollar in this crap proposal.
I wonder if they're going to go supervillain and start charging to not point their mirrors at sites
This also occurred to me.
@sundogplanets Unbelievable. @pluralistic did say that rent-seekers would try to control solar energy, but this is just beyond ridiculous.
@ygor @sundogplanets @pluralistic
There's an old (1970s?) cartoon (which I can't find right now) of an executive behind his big desk.
"You want oil?" he asks. "We own the oil wells."
"You want coal? We own the coal mines."
"You want nuclear? We own the uranium mines."
"You want solar? We own...er...um...solar doesn't work!"
@sundogplanets sorry should have read your following toot, they have already secured VC funding, too bad.
If the mirrors cannot be stowed between pointings every 4 minutes, they will sweep across the ground as they move between one target and the next.
At their proposed size, a single RO satellite is orders-of-magnitude too faint to power a solar panel on the ground, thus many would be required to power solar panels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM
RO has applied to the FCC for their first satellite launch in mid-2026, stating they plan to launch thousands of these satellites https://orbitaltoday.com/2025/07/31/startup-plans-to-beam-sunlight-to-earth-using-space-mirrors/
@sundogplanets How can it be destroyed?