• Konala Koala@lemmy.world
    cake
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    4 days ago

    Just looking at this has me feeling really concerned when it comes to the environment and nocturnal species.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 days ago

      Well unless the mirror is 20km across, they won’t notice because the whole idea is insane.

      This is like the Romans thinking they are going to build aircraft, we are no way we are near the level of technology required to do this. This is like stage 2 civilization level stuff.

      • Konala Koala@lemmy.world
        cake
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        3 days ago

        Oh okay, it’s just that I feel attached to the woodlands and find comfort being in the middle of the forest, and seeing what is going on here made me feel really concerned for the environment and nocturnal species. Like, what if you happen to be an animal that is on the prowl or is active at night and all of a sudden its daylight due to sunlight being reflected from a mirror in space?

      • BleatingZombie@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        3 days ago

        How would it work if it’s not that large, though? They could only sell sunlight to people who are within the target radius, but that would be very temporary

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          3 days ago

          Very temporary. If it’s going to be very has to be close to the Earth or no one will see it. But if it’s close to the Earth it moves so fast there’s no point, orbital speed for that altitude is something like 7.8 km per second.

          The only way to make this work is to have a truly vast mirror and have it out at geostationary orbit, then angle the mirror as needed to turn on or off the sun but then you’re going to be covering a significant area of the planet.

          To demonstrate how utterly insane this idea is, this is the sort of thing a civilization would do if it decided it wanted to terraform Mars. Doing this wouldn’t be the efforts of a single corporation it would have to be a global effort, we don’t currently have the capability of putting something that massive in orbit, we don’t have a way to reliably control the mirror, we can’t even manufacture a mirrored surface that large, and there have been zero studies on the environmental effects of doing this. It would honestly probably be easier to build a space elevator.

          Oh and even if we did do all of this, despite it being impossible, it would only work for a couple of years and then the mirror would get pushed out of orbit by light pressure. The only way to counter that is extremely complicated mirror geometries, and even more mirrors, making the total surface area in the hundreds or even thousands of kilometer range.

          • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            3 days ago

            It does sound ludicrous…might be better off making a concave mirror so it reflects and intensifies the light…like a giant magnifying glass over an ant hill. Yeah…that’s how they should do it. Nothing gonna wrong with that.

            • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              3 days ago

              A concave mirror would focus all of the light from a wide area into a single point. What you’ve created there is a giant space laser. One that only works at night because you need the sun on the opposite side of the Earth to reflect it.

              Also all of the previous problems about it needing to be massive, or close to the Earth and moving faster apply.

            • Konala Koala@lemmy.world
              cake
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              3 days ago

              Yeah, what you just stated about a concave mirror is not only ludicrous, but would be very destructive to the wilderness and wildlife and probably would be time to contact every wilderness and wildlife defense group to have this so called start-up shut down.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      4 days ago

      My startup is going to rent sunlight interceptors that block the extra sunlight sattelite beams that your neighbour rented and what is keeping you awake all night.

  • mPony@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    70
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 days ago

    Startup says it wants some more cocaine and wants to know if you know anyone with some more cocaine because some more cocaine would be fuckin’ great right now holy shit

  • Chozo@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    57
    ·
    5 days ago

    This gives me a great idea for a new startup! I’m going to put a giant mirror in space, and you’ll need to pay me to turn OFF the sunlight at night.

    • symthetics@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      5 days ago

      The people behind that startup are in tears strangling each other wishing they thought of this.

  • CO5MO ✨@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    75
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 days ago

    Did this dude get VC $ by presenting The Simpsons “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” wtfff is this nonsense 🙄

  • hsdkfr734r@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    53
    ·
    5 days ago

    I’d like to have darkness during daytime. I’m not sure I would pay for it, but I’d like it very much.

  • UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    5 days ago

    It’s so dumb uggh. Getting the same power output as the sun would need a MINIMUM surface area of the size of the area on earth it would illuminate.

    So say the use case is extending daylight time in Anchorage, Alaska during winter. You would need a mirror that has MINIMUM surface area that of Anchorage. Somehow, it would need to be in an orbit that can reliably reflect light to Anchorage at all points.

    Then, it would most likely be in low Earth orbit as putting it higher would require bigger mirrors. However, if u are in LEO, u are also moving incredibly fast. You would thus need an array of these super large mirrors.

    All of this for what? Something that an led can do incredibly easily?

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      5 days ago

      Would it not be possible to deflect it through a lens? Couldn’t that increase the spread area significantly and because of the contrast at night you would only need a fraction of the light intensity to make an area feel well lit?

      • ferret@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        You don’t need a lens, just a differently shaped mirror. Their point is just that the light you capture is based on the mirror’s surface area, so if you are selling sunlight-equivalent amounts of light you would need a mirror of equal area to that you are selling. You would not need such a large mirror to sell an area of dimmer light, and you would not need a lens.

      • UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 days ago
        • A convex mirror could work, sure. A lens would be impossible to construct for the size necessary.
        • I don’t get what u mean by “contrast at night”, but sure - let’s assume that you would need 5% of the power at noon. You would still need a mirror with a surface area of 5% of the area you are illuminating.