Me a couple of years ago: “Man I really hope that the US doesn’t get some strange ideas like obscuring the sun as a last-ditch attempt against global warming which could have disastrous consequences worldwide”
US: launches space mirrors to get even more sunlight
It’s great really, soon you’ll be able to pay for a monthly daylight subscription
I’m sure this totally wouldn’t be used to terrorize ethnic groups empire doesn’t like. Pretty sure it’d fuck up quite a lot of our telescopes too.
there’s probably no issue adjusting focal length to turn this into a space-based version of a kid roasting ants with a magnifying glass
Might be good for messing with missile defense sensors
Apparently, even the insane sounding “space lasers” bullshit also fits the “every accusation is an admission” thing.
Just need giant space-speaker so they can turn any area on the earth into Guantanamo.
Late Stage Capitalist Dystopia
this is a good idea because people who live north of the polar circle famously work 24/7 during the 6 months of summer sunlight
What’s wrong with light bulbs?
: Isn’t this great, Squidward? Just you and me together for hours and hours and hours? And then the sun’ll come up? And it’ll be tomorrow, and we’ll still be working! (gasps) It’ll be just like a sleepover! Only we’ll be sweaty and covered with grease! (jumps onto the edge of the counter) Are you ready to rock, Squidward?!
: No.Squidward and SpongeBob represent two archetypes of the lumpen proletariat
How tf is this more efficient than putting up electric lights?
This isn’t for workers
This is for military shit most likely
Like the world’s biggest, brightest flare
That doesn’t really make sense either. Not only does that light up the battlefield for both sides of the conflict, so there’s no advantage, but also most conflict is drones anyway and they operate just as well in both light and dark.
I think this startup might be a bad idea.
Right, I’m betting they probably think they can kajigger it into an Archimedes death ray or something at some point
I think they’d need a constellation of a lot of satellites for that, but yeah, I guess that’s possible.
Unless there’s clouds.
“Lights” can’t pump my startups evaluation and make me rich when I dump the stock.
In the article it talks about how the main application would be to keep solar working at night, but I guess “keeps people working around the clock” generates more clicks thus the title
There’s no way this is more efficient than pumped water storage or grid batteries or the other solutions we have for that.
Yeah but tech startups in the US are just hype bubble grift anyway. It just has to sound theoretically possible.
there’s maybe some really specific remote locations with steep mountains where it comes out in the logistics, but a better bet is that this is a scam
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18 by 18 meters at 625 kilometers up.
I really doubt this can light up much of anything.
The Znamya 2 was a 20-metre wide space solar mirror. […] when illuminated, produced a 5 km wide bright spot, which traversed Europe from southern France to western Russia at a speed of 8 km/s. The bright spot had a luminosity equivalent to approximately that of a full moon.[3] Although clouds covered much of Europe that morning, a few ground observers reported seeing a flash of light as the beam swept by.
For reference: the Sun is about 400’000x brighter than the Moon.
I mean…that is not a lot. It moved at 8 kilometers per second as well? How is this useful to anyone?
It occurs to me that if they want this to be geostationary, it will need to be at 60.000km height, which is 100x what this test thing was at.
But if you widen a 20m diameter mirror to a 5km diameter illuminated area you get 250*250 = 62’500 times less light energy per area, compared to the same spot in direct daylight. Or only 6.4 times brighter than the moon, calculating from your factor of 400’000.
For the stated goal of solar power, this would be completely useless. Well not completely, just 62’500 times worse than during daytime.
The Znamya project already tried this and it’s a 100-year old idea at least.
The Znamya 2 was a 20-metre wide space solar mirror. […] when illuminated, produced a 5 km wide bright spot, which traversed Europe from southern France to western Russia at a speed of 8 km/s. The bright spot had a luminosity equivalent to approximately that of a full moon.[3] Although clouds covered much of Europe that morning, a few ground observers reported seeing a flash of light as the beam swept by.
For reference: the Sun is about 400’000x brighter than the Moon.
It’s just tech-bros pumping stocks with space-slop and sci-fi hopium.
Wow, man made horrors beyond my comprehension
The usual
Have you heard of light pollution?
Forget the leo satellite constellations and prepare for the real space age
If this happens, all of the Kerbal people need to sign up to launch space flak into orbit.
This is shockingly easier to do than you might think. If your goal is just Kessler syndrome, space terrorism is incredibly easy. Almost any guerilla organization with basic fabrication capability has the means to deny access to space for the foreseeable future.
Targeting an individual object in space and destroying it is much harder.
Targeting an individual object in space and destroying it is much harder.
Scifi How to Blow up a Pipeline would go so hard lol
Doing a reverse Marco Inaros lol
