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.
In addition to being a moronic idea, this is also physically infeasible as I outlined in excruciating detail in my comment the last time this came up. The takeaway is that this is an investor scam for sure, and the side effects outlined in this article are just a fun (!) and exciting (!) sideshow if these bozos actually do mange to get a single mirror off the ground and deployed. Which they probably won’t.
Yeah this is another rugpull meant to allow the rich to get richer on the money of idiots
“We’re a startup”
“What’s your plan?”
“Giant mirrors in space to control the sunlight that hits the earth’s surface.”
“Wow, sounds incredibly expensive and of dubious technical merit. What are you asking to make this happen?”
“We need whatever money you have in your wallet right now.”
“And the return on investment?”
“Infinity zillion dollars.”
“I guess I’d be a fool not to hand you all my money.”
“Absolutely. Now… that’s a really nice watch. And shoes. We could get you an amazing return if you gave us those, too.”
This is the same reason that harvesting solar energy in space and beaming it down is also a stupid fucking idea. It’s politically problematic. Nobody wants anybody to have giant death rays in space, so there’s effectively no way to get the energy down to earth. It looks like we’ll all just have to rely on all the green technologies that already work.
You don’t even have to be an expert to see that this is one of the stupidest ideas ever conceived.
Judging from how many ppl hated daylight saving time, i can imaging some ppl attempt to fund this
People don’t hate DST, they want permanent DST.
I feel like most people just want to pick one and stick to it; stop changing it back and forth every other season, my body will adjust to the changing days just fine on its own.
Joking aside this is a horrible idea even if it were possible to get right. Anything with circadian rhythm is going to get fucked up real fast and that includes people. This is like angry mob outside the corporate office level bad. Torches and pitchforks, the whole thing
Except torches, they won’t be needing those
As mentioned in a different comment, this isn’t the problem.
These aren’t planned to block out the sun everywhere. They’re planned to light up specific small regions.
There are real problems like the potential for mishaps blinding pilots (hopefully only temporarily), ruining earth based astronomy, adding to space waste, and more, but the fear of blocking out the sun would only be a real one if they had an amount of mirror coverage its hard to imagine.
ah you may have missed my meaning there. I was concerned about sunlight going somewhere in the middle of the night. Things need it to be dark. Since both the article and other commenters had already addressed the issues to people I thought I would bring up that its an environmental disaster as well
I dont think I misunderstood, I think you’re thinking that this would make places dark where they shouldnt be or light up a whole country or something, but thats not how it could work
neither actually. I don’t think this is ringworld, light pollution from lighting up a single building at night with sunlight would play holy hell with the ecosystem. Along with all the other problems
even the proposed three mile patches of sunlight mentioned in the article would be incredibly impactful and in fact the article does briefly mention the environmental impact:
“Past research on light pollution has also shown that it can alter the behavior of a wide array of animals and plant species, as well as disrupt human sleep cycles.”
⇒⇓⇑⇒⇓
It’s nice how, in theory, some crackhead silicon valley startup would be allowed to single handedly fuck up just about everything
Next idea : Shining ads in space, powered by sunlight, so people always have something to look at. /puke
Yeah, but think of the value they will create for the shareholders!
given the enormous capital cost of doing anything in space ever, I don’t think they’d even do that
“In theory”? More like “Move fast and break society.”
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 literally, actually a bond villain plot
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.
Why is this not an Onion piece???
“We also plan on patenting atmospheric air and granting reasonably priced usage licenses for limited daily volumes to every man, woman and child on the planet. It’ll be great!”
Capitalism is at it again 🤦 What are they selling next? Air?
Are we talking Spaceballs or Total Recall?
We’re definitely spaceballs
They already sell air (of Mountain Fuji) in Japan.
Last time some rich fuck started screwing with people’s access to natural sunlight cycles, it didn’t end well for him.
please stop fucking with the delicate balance of nature, its the only nature i’ve found that works for me
