Startup Plans April Launch for a Satellite to Reflect Sunlight to Earth at Night (msn.com) 53
A start-up called Reflect Orbital "proposes to use large, mirrored satellites to redirect sunlight to Earth at night," reports the Washington Post, "with plans to bathe solar farms, industrial sites and even entire cities in light that could, if desired, reach the intensity of daylight...."
Slashdot noted their idea in 2022 — but Reflect Orbital now expects to launch its first satellite in April, according to the article. "But its grand vision is largely 'aspirational,' as its young founder, Ben Nowack, told me..." Reflect Orbital's Nowack describes a scene right out of sci-fi: An extremely bright star appears on the northern horizon and makes its way across the sky, illuminating a 5-kilometer circle on Earth, then setting on the southern horizon about five minutes later, just as another such "star" appears in the north. To make the night even brighter, a customer could make 10 "stars" appear at once in the north by ordering them on an app. Two such artificial stars are in development in Reflect Orbital's factory. Nowack showed them to me on a Zoom call. The first to launch is 50 feet across, but he plans later to build them three times that size. If all goes according to plan, he'll have 50,000 of them circling the Earth in 2035 at an altitude of around 400 miles.
Nowack plans to start selling the service "in mostly developing nations or places that don't have streetlights yet." Eventually, he thinks, he can illuminate major cities, turn solar fields and farms into round-the-clock operations for any business or municipality that pays for it. He likened his technology to the invention of crop irrigation thousands of years ago. "I see this as much the same thing," he said, arguing that people would no longer have to "wait for the sun to shine."
The article adds that Elon Musk's SpaceX "wants to launch as many as a million satellites to serve as orbiting data centers — 70 times the number of satellites now in orbit." (America's satellite-regulation Federal Communications Commission grants a "categorical exclusion" from environmental review to satellites on the grounds that their operations "normally do not have significant effects on the human environment.")
The public comment periods for the two proposals close on March 6 and March 9.
Slashdot noted their idea in 2022 — but Reflect Orbital now expects to launch its first satellite in April, according to the article. "But its grand vision is largely 'aspirational,' as its young founder, Ben Nowack, told me..." Reflect Orbital's Nowack describes a scene right out of sci-fi: An extremely bright star appears on the northern horizon and makes its way across the sky, illuminating a 5-kilometer circle on Earth, then setting on the southern horizon about five minutes later, just as another such "star" appears in the north. To make the night even brighter, a customer could make 10 "stars" appear at once in the north by ordering them on an app. Two such artificial stars are in development in Reflect Orbital's factory. Nowack showed them to me on a Zoom call. The first to launch is 50 feet across, but he plans later to build them three times that size. If all goes according to plan, he'll have 50,000 of them circling the Earth in 2035 at an altitude of around 400 miles.
Nowack plans to start selling the service "in mostly developing nations or places that don't have streetlights yet." Eventually, he thinks, he can illuminate major cities, turn solar fields and farms into round-the-clock operations for any business or municipality that pays for it. He likened his technology to the invention of crop irrigation thousands of years ago. "I see this as much the same thing," he said, arguing that people would no longer have to "wait for the sun to shine."
The article adds that Elon Musk's SpaceX "wants to launch as many as a million satellites to serve as orbiting data centers — 70 times the number of satellites now in orbit." (America's satellite-regulation Federal Communications Commission grants a "categorical exclusion" from environmental review to satellites on the grounds that their operations "normally do not have significant effects on the human environment.")
The public comment periods for the two proposals close on March 6 and March 9.
Astronomers will love this (Score:5, Insightful)
As if Starlink satellites ruining their observations weren't enough... yeah, more light pollution is exactly what we need.
Re:Astronomers will love this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Astronomers will love this (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not add the fact that reflecting sunlight onto the earth at night increases warming.
You're not wrong, but by how much? Even if this plan gets anywhere near a scale that yields useful energy, I think it needs to be weighed against the kinds of energy-generation methods we use already that unquestionably warm the planet -- and may also produce greenhouse gasses.
And for the record, I'm not exactly a fan of this new idea. I like night skies and I want to keep them.
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These mirrors could be switched off instantly, unlike greenhouse gases which take centuries to dissipate.
Still sounds like a bad idea though. Trying to abolish nighttime will always be a Quixotic endeavor, like Daylight Savings Time.
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Anyone will hate this, it is unnecessary light pollution on top of all other light pollutions that exist. I may go into the basement where the leftovers of the Ronnie's Star Wars era are kept and see if those large pieces of laser amplifier glass can be pumped with a diode laser bank.
Even the Soviets had enough sense to refrain [wikipedia.org] from doing it.
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As someone who lives in an area with very limited winter sunlight, I would love some additional winter sun. Winter is beautiful, and I hate how you don't get to enjoy it much because of the limited light. Yes, by all means add an "artificial star" in the sky that shines when the sun doesn't.
Fuck that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Fuck that (Score:1)
Also, plants do both respiration and photosynthesis all the time - the balance changes largely in the presence of sunlight.
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I thought most people sleep at night... y'know, when it's dark outside.
I foresee a whole lot of sleeping pill prescriptions if this comes to pass, and if it does, I'd recommend buying stock in any company that makes black-out curtains.
Yep... LLM-AI datacenters are so important that you're going to make it daylight 24/7, forcing animals that wake with the sun (which is the vast majority of them) to go about their lives sleep deprived until they die from lack of sleep, at which point we no longer have wild an
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I thought most people sleep at night... y'know, when it's dark outside. I foresee a whole lot of sleeping pill prescriptions if this comes to pass, and if it does, I'd recommend buying stock in any company that makes black-out curtains.
Yep... LLM-AI datacenters are so important that you're going to make it daylight 24/7, forcing animals that wake with the sun (which is the vast majority of them) to go about their lives sleep deprived until they die from lack of sleep, at which point we no longer have wild animals at all. Not to mention how that'll disrupt weather patterns, crops... everything.
Is LLM-AI that important?
Don't worry. We've been assured that once we give all resources, even theoretical resources, over to the AIs and their owners, the AIs will solve all problems created by pursuing the fantasy of AI God. Only AI God can save us from AI God! BOW TO THE FUTURE!
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I know, that's the punch-line... once we integrate it into humanoid robots (and the ICBM control systems), it's all over.
Even if Asimov's three laws are hardcoded into the BIOS of the 'bots, there's plenty of loopholes the robot's OS could use to "not exactly follow a human's order(s)".
Sure, you can use a LLM-AI thingy to generate code for something, but a human still has to verify the code and make sure that it works like it should... what about when it's generating code for Los Alamos or something where t
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I know, that's the punch-line... once we integrate it into humanoid robots (and the ICBM control systems), it's all over. Even if Asimov's three laws are hardcoded into the BIOS of the 'bots, there's plenty of loopholes the robot's OS could use to "not exactly follow a human's order(s)".
Sure, you can use a LLM-AI thingy to generate code for something, but a human still has to verify the code and make sure that it works like it should... what about when it's generating code for Los Alamos or something where that extra line of odd-looking code could cause the lab to crank out an atomic weapon 10,000 times more powerful than Hiroshima. If you or I were writing the code ourselves, we wouldn't include that code, and would remove it if I sent the file to you. We don't need to add AI of any kind to the list of things we have to manage... humans can barely manage (as in a manager at a business) our own individual lives, add a computer thingy that tries to anticipate your every need and micromanage your life... things get grim.
I foresee 10-50 years down the road, society being exactly like the Animatrix episodes "The Second Renaissance (parts 1 & 2)". Because, you know as well as I do, the remaining factories will push for full automation (robot arms with computer vision controlled by AI), the big question is how we (the humans) will get the money to sip champagne all day. Some people call me a doomsayer... I take the wait-and-see approach. Maybe it works out in our favor (somehow), but everything else says it ends with us in pods tied into a thing that harvests the power we generate (which is only like 100W at rest... we only generate more power when we're active (jogging or something)... that ain't a lot.
Maybe, it'll end up like the garbage pile in Wall-E
You're far more optimistic than me. If the people in charge today remain in charge during the automation ramp-up, they will at some point decide that "useless eaters" (people that are no longer needer for work) should be eliminated. Or simply dumped in the wilderness somewhere when they can no longer pay their bills and left to fend for themselves. If there's any wilderness left, that is. I can't foresee the elites of today somehow morphing into people who care enough to allow for most of the population to
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Don't worry... they (the LLM-AI, and eventual AGI) won't nuke the planet; that would EMP itself.
It'll leave us to starve because it took all our jobs.
I support trashing data centers (I won't do it... don't wanna end up in prison).
The vector.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Global warming isn't real or people are really (Score:2)
really really stupid
Can't sleep because your neighbor's dog barks all night? Just order up some sunlight for their house. Try to sleep now motherfuckers!
But yeah, if you think global warming is real, then this should be illegal.
Re: Global warming isn't real or people are really (Score:2)
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There will also be bad effects on birds & bugs [buglife.org.uk] and other wildlife [bto.org]. This will just add to the ways that we are screwing up our planet.
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I mean, that would be fucking awesome though. In a amoral mad scientist kind of way.
This is a scam (Score:5, Insightful)
All of that is way cheaper than throwing satellites up in the air. This is a scam to get money out of investors. Solving a problem that was already solved just by having large scale energy storage and maybe a bit of wind power.
And all the people (Score:2)
Solar Freakin' Space Mirrors! (Score:4, Interesting)
EEVblog 1637: Solar Freakin' Space Mirrors! - Reflect Orbital DEBUNKED [youtube.com]
Musk's space datacenters (Score:4, Interesting)
Dear god, will the stupidity never end?
This can't happen. In space, dumping heat is a massive issue. Getting power is a massive issue.
Imagine the size of the solar and radiator arrays for the most modest conceivable datacenter, and if you know anything at all about the subject you'll shake your head in disbelief that anyone thinks it's a good idea.
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It's not that bad. A Starlink has enough power and radiator capacity to run a few GPUs. Launch half a million of those and you've got a decent datacentre. Perfectly possible.
You'd get your lunch eaten by a guy with a standard sheet metal box on the ground though.
That's why the tech types love it. It's something that's become technically possible only in the last few years, it's cool, impressive, and only suffers from the small drawback of being completely impractical.
Re: Musk's space datacenters (Score:1)
Are you sure you want to know (Pro-Tip: it's quite a long time). The government is just ramping up to push for peak stupid.
Holy giant mirrors in space batman! (Score:2)
So dumb for so many reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
At 400mi altitude, these things will be useless in any time except summer because when it's night in winter, a satellite that low is eclipsed if it is visible overhead.
Further, if he wants to light up a 5km circle on the ground from a single mirror, he's basically going to need to be 1000km away since the angular diameter of the reflected beam is going to be equal to twice the angular diameter of the sun (2 x 10 mrad). Any closer and the spot on the ground is commensurately smaller. Any farther and it's bigger.
Now let's do some math on the power coming down. Let's say 50 ft diameter mirror and a 5 mile spot on the ground. That's a neat factor of about 1000 in diameter and 1 million in area. So the amount of sunlight reflected down per unit area illuminated is 1 millionx less than direct sunlight. That's fainter than a full moon. 10 of them at once is about 4x brighter than a full moon.
And also only works a little before sunrise and a little after sunset. See paragraph 1.
Useless for agriculture and useless for street lights. A handcrank flashlight is more useful. As is the built in flashlight on the phone you summon these things with.
And oh yeah: dragging a 50 ft sail at that low of an altitude means they will reenter after at most a few months on orbit. Even less if they're lightweighted to optimize launch cost per kg. Which paradoxically means the cost and revenue incentives are all opposite. To launch more they need to be lightweight, but the lighter they are the less revenue they will generate.
Dumb dumb dumb.
Re: So dumb for so many reasons (Score:1)
Edit: duh. Factor of 500, not 1000. Still pointless.
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At 400mi altitude, ... dragging a 50 ft sail at that low of an altitude means they will reenter after at most a few months on orbit. Even less if they're lightweighted to optimize launch cost per kg.
That's a feature, not a bug. You want to deorbit something like this if it ever stopps being under active control.
Re: So dumb for so many reasons (Score:1)
It's a feature if you're everybody else. It's a bug if your revenue stream depends on these things stating in orbit.
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Something like that had better have the mother of all security measures, and those security measures still probably won't be enough... hack its control systems and have it sweep over a big swath of whatever city, state, or country you want... instant cleared land, with the bonus of burning trees!
Re: Next up.... (Score:1)
DAMN.
Thank you.
That was the trigger I needed. Been trying to remember for a year or more.
The Complete Venus Equilateral.
Gotta go get it now, but it seems to be more relevant on many levels .....
Let us see, from memory:
Destruction if the beam to Earth wanders even a fraction off target ... Check.
Inter[solar,planetary,..cene] competition and screwing the consumers for every penny...Check.
Multiple litigious attacks by the bad guy...Check.
Basic replication and transporter technology (via Star Trek definitions)
Re: Next up.... (Score:1)
Oh yeah. These were just communication satellites. Easily measured wattage.
This guy wants to fuck with sunlight.
I always love read about people who have a new way to control the sun.
They're a firmly documented and shining part of history. Every single one of their success just shine out.
too cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently, it has become way too cheap to put garbage into orbit.
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So we can't reflect sunlight away from Earth to lower warming, but we can reflect it toward Earth to increase it... Does that make any sense to you?
Demonstrating reflecting sunlight toward Earth would ipso facto also demonstrate the ability to reflect sunlight away from Earth.
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Thief! (Score:2)
Not content to merely steal the wonder of the night sky, now someone wants to steal night itself.
I'm sure the animals won't mind (Score:3)
Clouds (Score:4, Interesting)
There are many objections to this plan, but clouds will make it even less desirable. I am not just referring to the reduced energy reaching the earth's surface through clouds, but the fact that clouds will defeat any attempt to focus the energy over a specific area. Clouds would diffuse the light in a way that would cause greater light pollution than any existing satellite.
Even more light pollution (Score:1)
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but no, more bullshit instead (Score:1)
if anybody actually manages to do this, our legal system has failed utterly and cannot manage the modern world
i think this is obvious anyway, "living on the planet" does not constitute "Standing" for a case, ergo a lot of people's bullshit is protected that really should have been stopped a thousand years ago
Global warming says, “Hi”. (Score:2)
Just what we need, more light at night (Score:2)
As though there isn't enough sunlight hitting (and warming) the Earth, now even more!?
War (Score:2)
So the next war will be between those who want to block out the sun and those who want to reflect more sunlight onto Earth?