I fucking hate this company. This is so fucking stupid for so many reasons.
https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/mount-whitney-reflect-orbital-22478878.php
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@sundogplanets
Aside from all the other stupidity, I'm stuck with how foolish this "test" was "we set up a bunch of lights, and people did stuff in the dark using the lights" wow, using lights a night! This totally shows satellite mirrors work and are a good idea.
Also thermal imagers work much better that people's eyes to find lost people.
@sundogplanets please tell me its CEO's name is not Gustav Graves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Another_Day
@sundogplanets Apart from all the immediate stupidity, I can't shake the thought that if they can reflect enough light to cover a large area, then there's little stopping them from pointing all the mirrors to a single spot and effectively creating the world's largest magnifying glass. The military would LOVE having a space death ray.
@antsu The Nazis actually had plans for this! Dark sky expert and space historian @JohnBarentine wrote a little about that here: https://www.darkskyconsulting.com/blog/the-dangers-of-sunlight-as-a-service
@sundogplanets @MisterArix How about the CEO of that stupid company be the first to test this long term by having the lights pointed at their house for a year. Come back and let us know how things are going afterwards.
Ah yes. Because search and rescue operations are famously almost always performed over flat, open ground when the skies are clear. Nobody ever needs rescuing when the weather is bad or the terrain is difficult, after all.
@sundogplanets
For a company that deals with sunlight, they aren't very bright.
@sundogplanets Cue the sun, I can't anymore with this crap.
@sundogplanets even on the medical perspective it's bad.
when you see that light pollution is already bad, they want to sell a way to make it worse.
@sundogplanets
There’s only 1 reason for going to all the trouble and expense, lucrative military contracts 😉
@sundogplanets The potential uses seem so pointless, are there like military uses that they don’t want to mention?
@sundogplanets "On top of commercial uses, the company is also pitching an application of the technology that could save lives — helping search-and-rescue teams find people in the dark."
FFS we already have these things called flashlights.
Yes! 𝗬𝗲𝘀! A 1000 times 𝙔𝙚𝙨!!!!
@sundogplanets I'm so goddamn tired of the stupidity.
Anybody have dark sky advocate connections around the Lone Pine, CA area? Can the town slap them with some nuisance lighting fines? That would be funny.
Talk to the folks at OVRO ?
@sundogplanets Their dedication to the grift, though.