California-based startup Reflect Orbital aims to build a swarm of 4,000 giant mirrors in low Earth orbit to “sell sunlight” to customers at night. Experts warn that the mirrors could mess with telescopes, blind stargazers and impact the environment.
Reflect Orbital, which was founded in 2021, has recently taken the first step in a scheme to sell sunlight at night by bouncing solar rays off giant “reflectors” that can redirect the vital resource almost anywhere on our planet. By doing this, the company aims to extend daylight hours in specific locations, thus allowing paying customers to generate solar power, grow crops and replace urban lighting.
But experts say it is a wildly impractical plan that should never get off the ground. What’s more, the resulting light pollution could devastate ground-based astronomy, distract aircraft pilots and even blind stargazers.
Life on earth depends on day and night cycles. This would cause an environmental disaster. So many animals would get fucked up.
Lets be real, this isn’t the problem.
These aren’t planned to block out the sun everywhere. They’re planned to light up specific small regions.
There are real problems like the potential for mishaps blinding pilots (hopefully only temporarily), ruining earth based astronomy, adding to space waste, and more, but the fear of blocking out the sun would only be a real one if they had an amount of mirror coverage its hard to imagine.