California-based startup Reflect Orbital aims to build a swarm of 4,000 giant mirrors in low Earth orbit to “sell sunlight” to customers at night. Experts warn that the mirrors could mess with telescopes, blind stargazers and impact the environment.
Reflect Orbital, which was founded in 2021, has recently taken the first step in a scheme to sell sunlight at night by bouncing solar rays off giant “reflectors” that can redirect the vital resource almost anywhere on our planet. By doing this, the company aims to extend daylight hours in specific locations, thus allowing paying customers to generate solar power, grow crops and replace urban lighting.
But experts say it is a wildly impractical plan that should never get off the ground. What’s more, the resulting light pollution could devastate ground-based astronomy, distract aircraft pilots and even blind stargazers.
This is literally, actually a bond villain plot
Moonraker.
Moonraker was eugenics and nerve gas. Die Another Day was big space mirror.
The future we hoped for: Dyson sphere, free unlimited energy
The future silicon valley shitlords are hoping for: let us sell you sunlight (or maybe lack thereof, wink wink)
Ah ha, exactly
This is obviously a scam directed at venture capitalists. There’s no way this is going to happen.
Okay, but can we execute these people for putting this concept into the world anyway?
Suncoin for sale.
Capitalism will steal the very foundations of life and sell it to you to make a buck. They will siphon the life force from the earth in order to benefit themselves. I honestly try and look at things dispassionately and put it all in perspective but DAM it’s hard not to be emotional when you see what these fucking stinking pigs are up to on their mountain.
this is one of the worst ideas that has ever come from capitalism dawg what the fuck who even thinks of this what rich fuck is gonna be paying to make it daytime at night…
its not just impractical, it is just entirely pointless and we already have way too much space pollution because of fuckin starlink
Was it not so bad when the (ex) soviets did it?
This is past soviet collapse and a literal monetary venture the whole point was to use it to sell access to it for the few rich places that could possibly want that, thats capitalist theres literally no use for it except for use in trying to increase wealth for a smaller group that has access to the technology and can suddenly control natural resources without even colonizing or genociding a place to get it they can starve countries or have a permanent advantage at the cost of the rest of society
Rich people should not have the choice to have fucking sunlight in the middle of the night.
They’re so fucking bored, they NEED to do stupid shit like this. They need to have what others don’t have.
Don’t worry, this type of Space Nuttery is merely a way to extract money from even dumber billionaires.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaren
None of the Space Nuttery fantasies will ever happen.
Reminds me of this other terrible dystopian idea I saw the other day: https://nz.news.yahoo.com/elon-musk-announces-plan-control-182840080.html
Glad billionaires think they can steal the sun and sell it back to us now.
Less Sun = Less Plants = Less Carbon Sink = 🤦
Last time some rich fuck started screwing with people’s access to natural sunlight cycles, it didn’t end well for him.
This exact same technology naturally allows capitalists to force everyone to pay not to have their sunlight blocked during the day.
I mean, the technology certainly has benefits, not in reflecting sunlight onto the dark side of the Earth. Nobody fucking needs that. Instead it should be used to shade a few percent of sunlight in order to control Earth’s warming climate.
But rich people gotta fuck things up. No single entity must ever be allowed to control orbital megastructures.
Rather then launching millions of tons of satellites, maybe the government could try regulating emissions? You know, remove cars, fossil fuel usage, create passenger rail etc? Improve society instead of doing literally the opposite?
Oh absolutely. Regulating emissions and mass carbon capture by replanting forests, then burying them is the only way. Ain’t like it would be even so easy as launching millions of shade satellites. An entire automated zero g manufacturing industry would have to be launched. And while that tickles my scifi nerd fancy, again, we can never allow a scant few humans to gatekeep space resources for themselves. That’s too much wealth and power.
So many companies and environmental damage just to get investors to dump money into terrible ideas.
Isn’t this basically the plot of “who shot Mr Burns?”
It’s the opposite of that plot. In that episode, Mr Burns blocks out the sun in order to force everyone to use more electricity to increase revenue for his nuclear power plant.
If the mirrors are reflecting light into a dark part of earth, they are taking it away from a place that’s experiencing daylight.
How? I would think the reflector would have to be near tangential to the area it lit up
Oh shit you’re right. I’m more lucid that I was when I wrote that and see how dumb it sounds.
Do they think the sun only shines on earth?
Don’t worry, they will only block light from poorer countries with a mostly non white population. very safe and nothing to worry about!
Wow yes. Had forgotten about this. They gave alternates of who killed him. I don’t remember them all but for some reason I rember Apu and Maggie firing with angry faces. I need to watch that again.
please stop fucking with the delicate balance of nature, its the only nature i’ve found that works for me
Yes. Let’s make the planet even hotter… Fucking morons.
They’re not going to reflect sunlight that wouldn’t otherwise hit the planet. This won’t add extra energy to the planet, just move it around a bit.
Literally a screenshot from their website
If I understand correctly, those mirrors will reflect sun rays, that would otherwise be wasted across the universe, to earth.
So, you are fundamentally wrong. The very idea is to reflect sunlight that wouldn’t otherwise hit the planer. This WILL add extra energy to the planet.
Even if they used sunlight that bounces off earth, they would still cause issues, just a little less serious. This is because they would be trapping energy that tries to leave the earth.
Greenhouse
gases. Just greenhouse.They’re supposed to be positioned in low earth orbit. Apart from a very slim belt that light would’ve hit the planet anyway.
Did you bother to read the 3rd part of my previous comment?
Are you being serious? I can’t tell, but if you are, that’s not how this works.
You either steal energy from somewhere/someone to redirect it around the planet where it’s dark, or, you add energy from what is not hitting the planet in the first place.
You can’t have a situation where you aren’t stealing someone’s sunlight and you aren’t adding sunlight
Are you serious? Taking energy from one part of the planet and putting it somewhere else isn’t going to make the planet hotter, like the previous commenter stated. Taking water from 1 lake and putting it in a neighboring lake, isn’t going to add or retract from the total water.
We do take energy from one place and put it in another. In the form of fossil fuels. And we ship it with what energy now?
What does that have to do with mirrors in space?
