FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK NOOOOO
Want some reminders of how fucking terrible this idea is?
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/true-cost-solar-power-night-reflect-orbital/
https://darksky.org/news/organizational-statement-reflect-orbital/
Journalists: please write about how dangerous this is.
Lawyers (especially if you're based in the US): please help fight this, it will take legal action now
@sundogplanets What about, say, nighttime, and animals & plants that require darkness to thrive? Or mirrors accidentally flashing or burning with that reflected sunlight? And all those satellites? Fck, this is really basic, simple stuff to consider.
@sundogplanets
Thats the plot to a crap bond movie.
@sundogplanets The other problem is that, for this to work at all, you might need a heliostationary orbit, creating kind of a traffic jam over the poles.
Think Kessler syndrome on steroids.
@sundogplanets I've always had a bad feeling about this idea, but I just tried to sketch out how it could work.
If the satellites are at 625km, that's only a tenth of the radius of the earth. Doesn't that mean the time they'll be in the sun and their target won't is very short? And probably at a very low angle of incidence? I think this means that you'd need hundreds for each target to get anything like steady illumination, particularly at midnight.
And even if they could perfectly reflect the power to earth, it can never be more than the sun's flux on the mirror, which is only 2,290sqm (for their bigger mirrors). The cost of a second 2,290 solar array and a battery to get you through the night is going to many magnitudes less than launching hundreds of complex satellite mirrors into orbit.
So what about illumination, their other "product"? I can't see anyone paying for hundreds of satellites when $5 LED head torches are right there. Even if they could illuminate an entire city (limited flux on the mirror makes that impossible), a city's street lighting system will still be magnitudes less expensive.
All of which convinces me that this will never happen. They may dupe enough investors to launch a test satellite, but the company will go bust five minutes after they release the actual performance stats. At the end of the day, Reflect Orbital is a scam on people who flunked science in school.
@sundogplanets What a dangerous and stupid idea. We humans seem to be hell-bent on becoming extinct!
@sundogplanets
Paging @heiseonline @mho - did you report on that lately?
@sundogplanets where's the problem?
There'll be another startup that'll bring thousands satellites that can bring shadow on earth wherever you want
Obviously you'll have to pay for that
And soon there'll such garbage in the sky that there'll be no more sky, sun, stars
Capitalists with no restraints' dream is a nightmare, it seems, the sooner they'll be stopped the better is
GREAT guess I'm not going to sleep tonight either. Maybe there will be auroras. I need to enjoy the night sky as much as I can now, I guess.
Fuck you, FCC, for approving this. Fuck Reflect Orbital and all the copycats it's going to spawn. Fuck techbros everywhere. Fuck venture capitalists for funding this destructive, useless bullshit.
Maybe Kessler Syndrome isn't the worst outcome...
@sundogplanets is there a way to block this from the scientific community even if it was approved by FCC?
@sundogplanets Ok, stage #2.
Someone, definitely not you, needs to find out which vc /banks are funding this, and which insurer is planning to underwrite the launch.
Cause them enough pain to drop any connection with this abomination.
More broadly, if the FCC is arguing it is not competent to be the regulator, fine, let ESA start pressure for the UN to take over that role.
@sundogplanets Honestly I hope someone boycott this before it happens.
#directaction
Just gotta say, even to all the pacifists and myself, humans throughout history have waged war over less.
Not saying it is a good idea, just making another observation while the planet and humanity along with it suffers so assholes can make us subservient.
@sundogplanets I'm so sorry, that's terrible news 🙁
@sundogplanets I just hope some folks hack it and deorbit it!
@sundogplanets [REDACTED] all the people who sponsored this shit.
@sundogplanets Modest Proposal: we get the best Irish scientists together to create a spud cannon capable of hitting objects in low earth orbit and then fire it directly into everyone responsible.
Preferably all standing in a straight line so we don't have to waste a lot of good potatoes.
@sundogplanets it's about as brilliant as getting the first man on the sun ... at night
@sundogplanets guess we will have to shoot it down.
@sundogplanets "we don't regulate the mirror so we are ok with it."
Then why do you allow it?
@sundogplanets they have got to be shitting us with this
UN is going to have to get involved - but U.S. will just veto it and do it anyway... 🤬
If this isn't going to be geosync... then this will affect other countries as it orbits.
If it is geosync - then we can hope the reflection won't be powerful enough to make additional units be not cost effective.
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If it continues - hope they provide blackout curtains for the world!
@sundogplanets how in the world is the FCC the organization that approves such an abomination?
@sundogplanets insert every curse word, in every language 😤
@sundogplanets I am beyond baffled at this decision.
@sundogplanets Wow, this is a truly terrible idea
Our world is a billionaire pedophile's toilet.
