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'Space graffiti': astronomers angry over launch of fake star into sky

theguardian.com

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Re: 'Space graffiti': astronomers angry over launch of fake star into sky

#21

Post by JoeAltmaier »

titzer wrote: post #18
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #17

Hm. "The heavens" is a protected area, like a wilderness or polar bear? What hubris - tiny humans feeling possessive about the entirety of the universe. Something very off here. And these are exactly the people who should appreciate our insignificance in the cosmos. Maybe they just expressed themselves badly. Its our 'sphere of observation' or some such, that they feel is being badly treated?

I'd argue the hubris is going the other way: launching shiny stuff into space that everyone has to look at. It's launching trash into space, IMHO, and I reacted quite negatively at first as well.

Nobody has to look at it. Any more than the rest of the stuff going by on a dark night. Which folks in the city can't see anyway.

No this issue is overheated silliness.

Re: 'Space graffiti': astronomers angry over launch of fake star into sky

#23

Post by danaliv »

strictnein wrote: post #4

> director of astrobiology at Columbia University Caleb Scharf wrote in Scientific American, the star represented "another invasion of my personal universe" There's hyperbole, and then there's comments like that. His "personal universe"?

I read that comment as making an analogy to intrusive advertising.

Re: 'Space graffiti': astronomers angry over launch of fake star into sky

#25

Post by nkrisc »

dogma1138 wrote: post #3
nkrisc wrote: post #2

Do you want regulations? This is how you get regulations. Once low Earth orbit is easily accessible to anyone, what can be done? There are all kinds of intentional and unintentional misuses of such a capability.

There is a metric ton of regulation you can’t launch anything into space without going thorough a mile of red tape. Apparently no one consulted astronomers with this case most likely as no one expected a use case where someone launches a freaking disco ball into low earth orbit.

That's sort of my point though. Every edge case that gets exposed gets another regulation.

Re: 'Space graffiti': astronomers angry over launch of fake star into sky

#26

Post by danielvf »

This is utterly, utterly overblown.

The Space Station is thousands of times bigger and throws back a hundred times more light than this will.

Every evening, for most of the populated world, dozens of brighter satellites than this go overhead. I just checked the orbits for my evening here - 57 brighter satellites.

But what about the flashing? Well, we've got those already too. The old, awesome Iridium satellites have giant antennas that act like mirrors. When one beams the sun onto you at night for a few seconds, it's hundreds of times brighter than the Humanity Star. The Hitomi, a failed Japanese weather satellite, flashes every second or so as it spins - again, much brighter than this will ever be.

And worries about Kessler syndrome for this object in a very low earth orbit? Even if every satellite in similar orbit magically exploded tomorrow, the debris would be gone in less than year. In the meantime we could still launch to other orbits. Kessler syndrome is overhyped in general, and a complete non-issue this low.

Re: 'Space graffiti': astronomers angry over launch of fake star into sky

#28

Post by dingaling »

jvandonsel wrote: post #16
upofadown wrote: post #12

Oh come now. There are a lots of orbiting objects that cause bright flashes. The flashes this particular object causes are not even that bright. I suspect that anyone who pointed this out were not quoted... Particularly the astronomers who thought the whole thing was awesome... Astronomers are bothered by any sunlight illuminated satellite. This will make no difference at all to their lives. * https://en.wikipedia.or…

Sure, but the point of those satellites is not to make a flash in the sky. The whole point of the disco ball is to dazzle.

Actually the older Iridium satellites were intended to make a flash in the sky. The three aluminium antennas were highly-polished for no other reason than visibility; free publicity. There were some thermal benefits but not significant.

The later blocks of satellites have a different antenna design and do not reflect as much.

A more sigificant astronomical impact of Iridium as a tangent, is that their transmissions on 1612 MHz interefere with radio astronomy observations of hydroxyl. In contrast a single 'disco ball' zipping around LEO for a few months is trivial.

Re: 'Space graffiti': astronomers angry over launch of fake star into sky

#30

Post by gatmne »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #21
titzer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue the hubris is going the other way: launching shiny stuff into space that everyone has to look at. It's launching trash into space, IMHO, and I reacted quite negatively at first as well.

Nobody has to look at it. Any more than the rest of the stuff going by on a dark night. Which folks in the city can't see anyway. No this issue is overheated silliness.

Just wait when coca-cola and friends fill the skies with their own logo constellations when (not if) space technology gets cheap enough. After all, it only needs to be cheaper than conventional ad campaigns to be viable.

Imagine going camping or into sea and having a canvas of logos everywhere you look at during the night.

Nobody has to look at it right?

Dismissing this issue as "overheated silliness" is extremely naive and short-sighted.

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