FCC approves test of space mirror to light night sky

Annoyingly and predictably, reads like AI slop. You can practically guess the prompt goes something along the lines of 'write a press release explaining why this bad idea is a good idea'.

Re: FCC approves test of space mirror to light night sky

#5

Post by ben_w » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:20 PM UTC

assbuttbuttass wrote: post #2

We've entered the "bond villain" era of VC startups

That was some time ago. Musk himself tweeted about getting a volcano lair in 2015.

Re: FCC approves test of space mirror to light night sky

#6

Post by fragmede » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:27 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #5

assbuttbuttass wrote: post #2

We've entered the "bond villain" era of VC startups

That was some time ago. Musk himself tweeted about getting a volcano lair in 2015.

2014 was the inflection point. 2013 brought us the term unicorn for companies, and was just long enough after the iphone that we were starting to make sense of it. That's when Elon Musk became a household name thanks to Tesla and SpaceX. Then there was Palantir. Google bought Deepmind in 2014. Google Facebook Amazon and Apple showed founders that software startups could transform the world, and the world leapt at the chance.

Re: FCC approves test of space mirror to light night sky

#7

Post by blondie9x » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

ryankrage77 wrote: post #4

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #3

Blog post: https://www.reflectorbital.com/blog-posts/humanity-has-an-en...

Annoyingly and predictably, reads like AI slop. You can practically guess the prompt goes something along the lines of 'write a press release explaining why this bad idea is a good idea'.

I think this company intentionally ignored discussing how battery storage has made solar energy a much more effective and viable solution.

Re: FCC approves test of space mirror to light night sky

#8

Post by physicalecon » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: FCC approves test of space mirror to light night sky

#9

Post by postalrat » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

ryankrage77 wrote: post #4

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #3

Blog post: https://www.reflectorbital.com/blog-posts/humanity-has-an-en...

Annoyingly and predictably, reads like AI slop. You can practically guess the prompt goes something along the lines of 'write a press release explaining why this bad idea is a good idea'.

Do you have anything to say about the project itself or do you only care about your perception of ai slop?

Re: FCC approves test of space mirror to light night sky

#10

Post by ben_w » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

They seem to be talking about each satellite managing the luminosity of the full moon over a few square kilometres, and getting a few tens of thousands of them.

Even if you ignoring how much drag these must have, and hence how much electrical power you'd need for an ion drive just to keep them up, each spot being a few km across (and only getting light while the satellite is over your horizon) is just not compelling.

Given most people don't have any reason to illuminate several square kilometres at once, for realistic scenarios it will take a lot of satellites before you beat the cheap battery-powered floodlights in my local Aldi or Kaufland, and the batteries in those lasts a lot longer than the 10-15 or so minutes each of the satellites will be over the horizon, and reflectors like these can only supply sunlight close to sunset otherwise the earth blocks the sun from them.

In the list of things which, if you could make them at all useful, would also be relatively easy to redesign as weapons.