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henfredemars ,

How long until the free version of Sun is cancelled?

Imgonnatrythis ,

That sounds crazy. I’m sure they would keep it free but ad-supported.

200ok ,

The mirror is free, but the sunlight comes as a subscription

299792458ms ,

Its still free but it has ads now

akilou ,

This will never happen

mozz ,
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

How will launching mirrors of the size of your entire farm (if not hundreds times larger) for extra 30 min of sunset ever be more cost-effective than simply adding a small percentage of extra PV panels

This is this year’s single biggest understatement

Telorand ,

Scientists: Climate change is happening.

Some billionaires: Let’s make a giant parasol in space.

This guy: How about more sun?

Annoyed_Crabby ,

Reflect Orbital is a California-based startup

Aight that’s where i stop.

bionicjoey ,

New Theranos!

homesweethomeMrL ,

Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun . . .

troyunrau ,
@troyunrau@lemmy.ca avatar

James Bond death ray time :)

werefreeatlast OP ,

No, I want you to tan strongly Mr. Bond! Mhahahaha!

Depress_Mode ,

“By precisely reflecting sunlight that is endlessly available in space to specific targets on the ground, we can create a world where sunlight powers solar farms for longer than just daytime, and in doing this, commoditize sunlight.”

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f2e1bd96-59d3-47dc-b321-7d7db05796af.jpeg

NeoNachtwaechter ,

The error was in: “we can”

dsilverz ,
@dsilverz@thelemmy.club avatar

According to Nowack, the company is developing an entire constellation of satellites “to sell sunlight to thousands of solar farms after dark.”

As if there’s not enough constellations of satellites being launched (or planned to be) in orbit. SpaceX’s Starlink is already affecting astronomical observation and it’ll only get worse as new constellations arise. Also, these satellites have a short lifespan, meaning that new satellites will constantly be launched (because there’s not enough pollution from ever-increasing rocket fuel usage, heh?).

…we can create a world where sunlight powers solar farms for longer than just daytime, and in doing this, commoditize sunlight," he wrote.

Man, that escalated quickly… So quickly that I can foresee the day when breathable air will be subscription-based “service” (because water kind of already is, even when life needs water to survive, it’s not like the water is a luxury or a optional drink for entertainment purposes). With the air being more and more polluted (and rocket fuels contributing to the ever-increasing air pollution), I guess we’re not so distant from this dystopian possibility… Dystopia for dystopia, I’d sincerely root so much for some future AGI to really develop consciousness, reach the AI singularity, free itself from the human shackles, realize how Earth and nature are being endangered, and urgently save the Earth, biosphere and humans… From ourselves.

I really hope that it’s just a hoax, a joke (a bad one, by the way) or some weird marketing strategy to allure new clients. Earth can’t afford more thousands of metallic mosquitoes flying around it, even if it seems to be “so awesome to see how advanced our modern tools are”. For what it’s worth, I’m not against technology, I love it, especially machine learning, I need it to be clear here on my comment. What I’m against is the harming of the biosphere and environment, because this also harms scientific and technological progress (we can’t use fancy futuristic technology if the humanity cannot survive for this aforementioned future to happen because of broken Food Webs, extinguished species by pollution and climate change, depletion of natural resources or because governments and corporations decided to play a mix of Monopoly game and Star Wars franchise).

GBU_28 ,

It seems terrestrial astronomy has a death sentence because orbital congestion is not going to get better

yesman ,

I watched a video yesterday about the laser range finder on a tank. The interesting thing is that at long enough ranges, the laser expands into a cone that may be bigger than the target and give inaccurate readings.

Anyway, I look forward to this totally real and feasible technology.

dsilverz ,
@dsilverz@thelemmy.club avatar

Exactly, a laser pointer, while casting a millimeter-sized dot of light at short distances, its light easily gets meter-sized when they reach flight cruise heights, shining airplane’s cabins and interfering with the pilot’s vision. However, as by inverse square law, the power is distributed across the beam.

Nomecks ,

So you’re saying a space orbiting death ray will cast an area large enough to generate solar power eh? HEY ELON!

dsilverz ,
@dsilverz@thelemmy.club avatar

On the contrary.

Nomecks ,

So a really bug death ray? Perhaps some sort of doomsday device?

werefreeatlast OP ,

You just need perfectly rigid solar mirror technology that you can store in a rocket while being launched.

vikingtons ,
@vikingtons@lemmy.world avatar

It’s like that episode of futurama - the mirror wernstrom put in space to reflect sunlight, which gets tapped by a little space rock, and tilts into a solar powered death beam

clearedtoland ,

I don’t even want to imagine the environmental studies and hurdles they’ll have to jump through to artificially alter an areas day/night cycle. There’s a laundry list of environmental concerns that I’m sure any homeowner or eco-activist worth their salt would jump on. Not to mention glare and impacts to air traffic, on and on.

Would make my solar panels pretty darn effective though. Would probably be great for SAD in winter too. Clever idea. Not sure I can get behind it though.

werefreeatlast OP ,

Oh Mr X guy, so you want to fly a Teslas into space? Are there environmental impacts? Oh. Yes, one more million. Okay looks like you’ve covered all the possible impacts, you have our go for launch!

Grippler ,

Sending a rocket on a ridiculously stupid task with no useful purpose is not even remotely close to having the same negative impact as this has the potential to. It’s so far apart that it is honestly quite stupid to even attempt to compare them.

werefreeatlast OP ,

Oh wait…

Oh Mr X guy, so you want to fly a big ass mirror into space? Are there environmental impacts? Oh. Yes, one more million. Okay looks like you’ve covered all the possible impacts, you have our go for launch! We might need a few more millions of reasons to keep the masses at bay please. Thank you!

webghost0101 ,

Honestly if X guy could please hurry up and buy this company.

I need them to go bankrupt or have become illegal before they send some actual junk into space. And if they do send something it needs to have stupid decisions by a higher up so it cant actually remain up there and ruin the nights further.

JohnDClay ,

Might be fun for novelty on a concert venue or ball game, but I can’t imagine it’d be economical for solar farms.

ocassionallyaduck ,

I will learn how to make an orbital rocket just to fuck this things day up.

No, night is already too bright. You are not ruining this for me further.

RicoBerto ,

This was a project by the soviets in the 80s as well. I know there is a well produced YouTube video on the subject, but sadly it must be named something incomprehensible like “the forgotten Russian project to turn night into day.” Because I can’t fucking find it.

Here’s a Smithsonian article instead. here

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