Post Az35SESssPDO1HTYf2 by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #Az34B69mPesFNKo1lA by wackJackle@norden.social
2025-10-09T19:08:14Z
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@hweimer @Rhodium103 @sundogplanets Yeah, that's one of the most important reason to be rich anyway.
(DIR) Post #Az34B7JO7Q9axQJDNI by Nimbius666@comp.lain.la
2025-10-09T23:51:44.283524Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@wackJackle @hweimer @Rhodium103 @sundogplanets clearly a money laundering scheme. The soviets tried this in the 70s with large parabolic mirrors and it never worked for a multitude of reasons.
(DIR) Post #Az35RBXEHh4Kdw0buS by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:18:33Z
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It's becoming increasingly clear to me that Reflect Orbital's fucking stupid giant mirror satellite, with absolutely NOTHING useful to offer, which will cause countless safety issues, ecological disasters, and destroy the night sky, is going to launch.A bunch of astronomers and I have sent out a fact sheet about them to a bunch of journalists, but very few are going to write about this. So, let me try posting it all here.Here's what I know about Reflect Orbital and all the downsides:
(DIR) Post #Az35RITwSJbABlWaG0 by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:20:26Z
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Reflect Orbital (RO) https://www.reflectorbital.com/ wants customers to pay them to reflect beams of sunlight down fromorbit. This is called “sunlight as a service.”Their initial plan is for each beam to be several times as bright as the full moon and at least 5 km in diameter on the ground.https://www.darkskyconsulting.com/blog/the-dangers-of-sunlight-as-a-serviceDue to the high speed needed to orbit Earth, each satellite will shine on one point for onlya few minutes at most (Reflect Orbital says 4 minutes https://thetundradrums.com/reflect-orbital-order-sunlight/)
(DIR) Post #Az35RP51vKpYeWvHto by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:21:38Z
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If the mirrors cannot be stowed between pointings every 4 minutes, they will sweep across the ground as they move between one target and the next.At their proposed size, a single RO satellite is orders-of-magnitude too faint to power a solar panel on the ground, thus many would be required to power solar panels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGMRO has applied to the FCC for their first satellite launch in mid-2026, stating they plan to launch thousands of these satellites https://orbitaltoday.com/2025/07/31/startup-plans-to-beam-sunlight-to-earth-using-space-mirrors/
(DIR) Post #Az35RVMcYqT08pCQ9Q by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:23:00Z
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The costs to safety and human health:Although the ground illumination from the first satellite will be much fainter than the Sun’s, looking at the satellite with binoculars or a telescope could actually damage your eyes, similar to looking at a partial solar eclipse. https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2000JRASC..94..237L
(DIR) Post #Az35RbLQKD4egqgY7M by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:24:05Z
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Beams of light sweeping across the sky at night can cause problems for pilots and drivers. It has the potential to be a substantial distraction, and risks disrupting night vision, particularly with multiple beams. This could be risky around airports and could lead to accidents, similar to laser strikes on aircraft. https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/laser-strikes-aircraft-continue-be-dangerously-high
(DIR) Post #Az35Rhbx1frM7qSpiC by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:24:51Z
2 likes, 1 repeats
Having thousands of RO satellites in orbit would lead to frequent bright flashes all over the sky for any observer on the ground. Even millisecond flashes of light at night have been shown to disrupt human circadian rhythms. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0022078Exposure to artificial light at night is linked to increased risks of some types of cancer. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5454613/
(DIR) Post #Az35RoJm5eTmvV0uqu by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:26:52Z
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The costs to astronomy:Have you noticed how bright the sky is the last few nights with the very bright nearly-full moon? Now imagine a point source 4x brighter, and moving across the sky. That's what they want to doAstronomy requires dark skies to see faint celestial objects. Due to scattering of light along the beam, anytime an RO satellite is above the horizon, it would disrupt anyground-based optical astronomy telescopes in the area. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2025/all2025/98/
(DIR) Post #Az35Rukw9ZlutTlh1U by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:27:41Z
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Similar to astronomical observing with a full moon in the sky, it would restrict observations to only the very brightest handful of stars and planets. This would cause the vast majority of astronomy research to be impossible while one or more of these satellites is above the horizon.Directly shining the beam onto a large telescope (anywhere within 5km of a large telescope facility) could damage sensitive research telescope camera equipment, which are calibrated to study faint celestial objects
(DIR) Post #Az35S13EkRyWPyNONc by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:29:08Z
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The costs to ecology:These are too numerous to even try to list. All life on Earth – including humans, migrating birds, pollinating insects, plankton in the oceans – depends on the natural day-night cycle of light and darkness. Many hundreds of scientific studies document the importance to ecosystems and agricultural crops of protecting that natural cycle. Bird migrations, pollination, plant growth, and animal behaviors could all be disrupted by reflected sunlight from orbit.
(DIR) Post #Az35S81ioTvG3IimUS by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:30:01Z
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The costs to orbital safety:“Sunlight as a service” requires huge mirrors in orbit, which would increase the likelihood of collisions between satellites.Loss of control could lead to tumbling, causing erratic, bright flashes in the sky.
(DIR) Post #Az35SESssPDO1HTYf2 by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:30:48Z
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Large reflector cross-sections also mean a much higher collision risk from micrometeorites and non-trackable orbital debris. Using typical rates https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S027311772030644X at 625km altitude (the orbit RO proposes to use), such reflectors could expect hundreds of micrometeorite and debris impacts each year, quickly degrading the reflector and creating more diffuse and larger beams.
(DIR) Post #Az35SKlXRxhZYsFXZQ by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:32:02Z
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There are already solutions right here on Earth to many of the problems “sunlight as a service” purports to solve. This approach is simply a reckless and inefficient use of Earth orbit, a precious and finite resource.This list of facts was developed by me and a bunch of very concerned astronomers. If you're a journalist interested in writing a news article about this, please look up my university email and contact me, and I'll be happy to chat.
(DIR) Post #Az35SR2Q86lr0yC6iW by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T17:36:37Z
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What can you do? The FCC never opened up a comment period on RO's filing for launch, so there's no official way to protest. They may open it up later? Absolutely no info on that.DarkSky International is working on a petition to be delivered to RO's misguided investors, I will share that as soon as its public.Most important: tell people about all the downsides of "sunlight as a service." The world needs to know how incredibly bad this idea is.Batteries! We need batteries, not space mirrors.
(DIR) Post #Az35SXFP2kikGyJYmm by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T20:58:21Z
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This article by two astronomers details many of the points I just talked about and more ways that Reflect Orbital's plan will never be feasible, just detrimental: now in The Conversation Australia, perfect timing: https://theconversation.com/a-us-startup-plans-to-deliver-sunlight-on-demand-after-dark-can-it-work-and-would-we-want-it-to-264323
(DIR) Post #Az35lfYuM11VYuYsqW by Clover@akko.wtf
2025-10-10T00:08:23.451589Z
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have they not heard of batteries???or long range power transmission??I dunno even nuclear power is a better option than this stupidity?how does one invest millions or even billions into this? it wouldn't really even be profitable? it's cheaper long term and more effective to use batteries, I hope whatever capitalist disease plagues their minds can eventually subside, or that they stop breathing, either works
(DIR) Post #Az364kG17ZpXctp08u by miki@dragonscave.space
2025-10-09T17:51:10Z
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@sundogplanets Genuine question, do (professional) astronomers in 2025 still rely on visible light to make their discoveries? It seems like such a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. If so, what makes this part of the spectrum more useful to science than any other?I'm asking as somebody who knows absolutely nothing about modern astronomy.
(DIR) Post #Az364lXmL1dFcH8hSy by fiore@brain.worm.pink
2025-10-10T00:13:06.692995Z
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@miki @sundogplanets the answer is yes . the two big windows of em waves that are easy to see with less atmospheric interference are radio and optical .also , most star spectra (saying “most” because “all” feels like im exaggerating but its all of them ) peak in the optical window , and have most if their emissions there .
(DIR) Post #Az36MVu9Dt7sKC463E by fiore@brain.worm.pink
2025-10-10T00:16:21.375793Z
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@winter this will actually make me start [REDACTED]
(DIR) Post #Az3rJKFMo0DP95yJdo by davidtheeviloverlord@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T22:51:37Z
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@ygor @sundogplanets @pluralistic There's an old (1970s?) cartoon (which I can't find right now) of an executive behind his big desk."You want oil?" he asks. "We own the oil wells.""You want coal? We own the coal mines.""You want nuclear? We own the uranium mines.""You want solar? We own...er...um...solar doesn't work!"
(DIR) Post #Az40ovgwXHcBqL10EK by thomas_klopf@dobbs.town
2025-10-10T10:48:57Z
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@sundogplanets I guess power demand for AI datacenters is driving this snake oil. Seems like a stupid idea and my guess is someone’s money will disappear here.
(DIR) Post #Az5vaz6aw5dGvDSrei by arisummerland@beige.party
2025-10-09T17:52:42Z
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@sundogplanets I can't even wrap my head around why somebody would want to do this as a service. (I don't need you to write out an explanation; I don't want to take up your time that way. I will look it up.) I think this is one of the stupidest things I have seen proposed recently. Next thing you know we'll have LED billboards in space or... whatever. That's not the future I want! I want dark nights and to be able to see the Milky Way from my house, and for birds not to get lost in their migration paths and healthier sleep and... I guess I want to time travel back to the 1200s, when there were no satellites and no electric lights. Grrrr.
(DIR) Post #Az5vb0F8ho3sS0TCc4 by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-10-11T08:59:43Z
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@arisummerland> this is one of the stupidest things I have seen proposed recently. Next thing you know we'll have LED billboards in space or... whateverThis! Sunlight-as-a-Service is like something out of Idiocracy. What's shocking is not that one nutter envisioned it (some of the blue skies brainfarts I come up with are just as far out), nor that a subculture of true believers formed around it. But that people in control of serious resources took it seriously. @sundogplanets
(DIR) Post #Az6FeIWRCPrX5tPSW8 by arisummerland@beige.party
2025-10-11T12:42:34Z
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@strypey @sundogplanets That says a lot about the people in control of the resources -- meaning it says a lot about how out of touch they are with reality, at least in my mind. Having read a little bit about it now, I sort of understand why somebody might think it would work and why they might think it might replace coal or natural gas or whatever to keep lighting up the world (and I continue to think it is a ludicrous concept). Yet it's still the space equivalent of filling up your entire yard with fragile tchotchkes that you're probably going to run over with your lawnmower. Bad idea.
(DIR) Post #B23Ao5jflW1ZtbxIrA by jeffcliff@shitposter.world
2026-01-07T18:42:28.143690Z
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@sundogplanets probably relevant: https://outerspaceinstitute.ca/crashclock/
(DIR) Post #B23AqXCccBu1f7f3RY by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-16T14:29:28Z
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Adding to this Reflect Orbital thread: @startswithabang wrote a thorough analysis of all the ways that Reflect Orbital is a terrible idea. Have a read! https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/true-cost-solar-power-night-reflect-orbital/
(DIR) Post #B23Aqc7UKhlcueIWdU by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-22T13:58:42Z
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Have I mentioned how much I like Nicole Mortillaro? Great article, includes quotes from @JohnBarentine (there were various good reasons why she didn't interview me for this one, but fortunately a lot of other astronomers besides me are really worried about Reflect Orbital's thoughtless plan)https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/reflect-orbital-space-mirror-9.6947427Reflect Orbital is stupid and will cause countless problems with no measurable benefits.
(DIR) Post #B23AqhKQy05r4FOR0a by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-12-04T15:08:50Z
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New article from Smithsonian Magazine about how stupid Reflect Orbital's plans are: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/giant-mirrors-in-space-could-bring-sunlight-after-dark-one-startup-says-and-astronomers-are-concerned-180987781/Features interviews with me and several of my excellent astronomer colleagues on the American Astronomical Society Committee for the Protection of Astronomy and the Space Environment! Looks like Reflect Orbital has followed SpaceX's lead and stopped responding to journalist inquiries.
(DIR) Post #B23AqmbdLTp3R2Tk0m by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-12-04T15:21:29Z
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I have doubts about whether or not change.org petitions actually do anything. But if you need to do something small right now against space mirrors, a DarkSky International member set up a petition here: https://www.change.org/p/stop-space-mirrors
(DIR) Post #B23AqsKq2px9CgfPfM by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-12-19T22:15:13Z
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DarkSky International just posted their position letter on Reflect Orbital. It is direct and to the point: "Based on current scientific evidence, DarkSky does not see a viable pathway for such systems to align with responsible lighting principles or with our mission to protect natural darkness. These systems would introduce significant ecological, human health, safety, and astronomical risks at a global scale."Read their letter and add your name here:https://darksky.org/news/organizational-statement-reflect-orbital/
(DIR) Post #B23ArOKx3x3cSIxxHk by BernieDoesIt@mstdn.social
2025-10-09T18:08:21Z
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@sundogplanets Kessler Syndrome as a Service.
(DIR) Post #B23Au5EgXKH05EJoCe by sundogplanets@mastodon.social
2025-10-09T23:09:41Z
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@HumanServitor That's even worse. A lethal, several km-wide microwave beam?