“Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky • Hacker News Board

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#291

Post by GIFtheory » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 3:30 PM UTC

nyankosensei wrote: post #185

upofadown wrote: post #55

>SpaceX plans to send one million more satellites into orbit, for space-based data centres, ... I think we should wait to see how the first satellite data centre works out. It seems fairly unlikely that it could be practical. It seems kind of nuts... >Reflect Orbital, a US start-up, aims to launch a constellation of very large mirror-like satellites to provide sunlight at night, with reflected beams that span at leas…

There are many feasibility and safety issues associated with the Reflect Orbital plan. It doesn’t make as much sense as you might think. For instance, the satellites can only illuminate areas a relatively short time after local sunset. The Sun reflection could potentially damage an amateur astronomer’s eye if one of the satellites crosses their telescope’s field of view: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/true-c…

SimCity 2000 solved this problem 26 years ago: just beam the power down as a tight microwave beam. Granted, things get messy when the beam accidentally sweeps across your city, but such is the cost of progress.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#292

Post by ajam1507 » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 3:34 PM UTC

solid_fuel wrote: post #106

arjie wrote: post #13

These kinds of caps have for years been a dampener on human flourishing. My observation has been that those in stagnation or decline tend to attach themselves to these desires to hold the status quo. Anti-energy, anti-housing, anti-industry and so on because they've reached a local maxima in their ability to live and have chosen to spend their life in leisure. But there is the rest of the world, and if I'm told that…

> These kinds of caps have for years been a dampener on human flourishing. I don't think blocking the view of the night sky is necessary for "human flourishing", actually. Your attitude reminds me of the Victorians, who saw their coal-smoke filled skies as a sign of virtuous progress. More reasonable minds prevailed, in the end, and now most people have a more balanced view - with the understanding that progress and…

I don't think viewing the night sky is necessary for "human flourishing"

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

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Post by lstodd » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 3:42 PM UTC

Panzer04 wrote: post #273

bazodedo wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about putting our astronomy experiments into space as well? There'd be no light / em pollution there, as well as no atmospheric interference etc. and, 24/7 free power courtesy of our sun. Id expect orbital observatories to be superior to ground based ones, thinking of Webb, Hubble. I suppose the only downside is cost. So, the actual problem, is how to tax the shared resource that is our LEO. Aside from that, wed…

Radio telescopes are hilariously massive. I'm not sure it'd be easy to reproduce their capabilities in space?

Why not? They are massive only because you are limited by earth surface. In space there are no limits, see Radioastron for example, and that was decades ago.

Right now for the price of that one project one could have a humongous radio telescope in orbit without any interference. If only people could really look forward.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#294

Post by throw0101a » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 3:44 PM UTC

ajam1507 wrote: post #290

throw0101a wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't really think this is a serious risk. This is a once-in-a-million-years kind of event. Perhaps the last event was one million years ago and we are now (proverbially) 'due'. > The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the belief that an independent and equally probable outcome which happened less frequently than expected is more likely to happen…

> Perhaps the last event was one million years ago and we are now (proverbially) 'due'. Ironically this is a great example of the gambler's fallacy.

Hence the use of "proverbially" and "due" being in quotation marks.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

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Post by lstodd » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #115

Legend2440 wrote: post #8

This is a tradeoff we have to make with infrastructure and development in general. How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? Do we put up long-distance power lines and wind farms even though they ruin the views? Do you tear down a forest to put up farmlands and suburbs? Do you build a dam to provide water for irrigation, even though it kills the fish and floods a valley? Satellites are actually easier than…

> How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? How about we set a limit on how many satellites? That’s exactly how to balance

That's like saying "how about we set a limit on horses in 1899 to limit horse shit on streets".

Answer was: automobile.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

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Post by estearum » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 3:46 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #279

mirashii wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that constellation is already up there and if its fine right now A lot of astronomers disagree.

And a lot of starlink customers agree. How can this be resolved?

Easy: Starlink should internalize its negative externalities. As a first pass, we can estimate how much astronomy infrastructure ($$$) is negatively impacted ($$$) by Starlink and pass those costs to them.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

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Post by tmach32 » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 3:49 PM UTC

I remember Bucky Fuller writing how seeing an airplane fly overhead used to be rare.

In my own childhood, seeing a satellite fly overhead used to be rare.

Now I see one every 2 minutes.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#298

Post by ben_w » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

expedition32 wrote: post #260

piloto_ciego wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a lot better than it was for the average human on earth than it was a couple centuries ago. Utopia can't happen overnight.

Infamously the 19th century saw declining living conditions in my country despite the technological and scientific progress. It is socialism that gets us to utopia not the technology.

It needs both together; the 20th century had a variety of attempts at (and degrees of) socialism, and the ones which politicised the science and technology instead of listening to it didn't work out too well either.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

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Post by lstodd » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #187

Legend2440 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lack the technology to detect this size of asteroid with enough time to do anything about it. Luckily, the majority of the earth's surface is unpopulated. Most of these rocks hit the ocean or Siberia and cause few or no casualties. The odds of it hitting a major city are quite low.

That’s why luck is a big factor and amateur astronomers are a great help in spotting them by chance

What exactly do you propose to do with a 50m chondite coming our way?

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#300

Post by brookst » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #115

Legend2440 wrote: post #8

This is a tradeoff we have to make with infrastructure and development in general. How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? Do we put up long-distance power lines and wind farms even though they ruin the views? Do you tear down a forest to put up farmlands and suburbs? Do you build a dam to provide water for irrigation, even though it kills the fish and floods a valley? Satellites are actually easier than…

> How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? How about we set a limit on how many satellites? That’s exactly how to balance

And who decides which satellites are approved? Is there a quota per country? Per capita? If a country declines to participate, do we count their satellites?

Centralized control from a benevolent dictator sounds great as a first approximation but rarely survives diving into the details.