this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2025
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Controversial startup's plan to 'sell sunlight' using giant mirrors in space would be 'catastrophic' and 'horrifying,' astronomers warn (www.livescience.com)
submitted 3 days ago by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
198 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

https://archive.ph/3WZrp

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.

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[–] Jumpropegazing@lemmy.zip 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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

[–] Morphit@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Was it not so bad when the ~(ex)~ soviets did it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamya_(satellite)

[–] Jumpropegazing@lemmy.zip 1 points 22 hours ago

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