I don’t want to live in a world where sunlight is for sale
What a wild sentence to write, and wilder still that there are people who don’t agree with it.
If you’re wondering what would prompt me to write such a sentence, please allow me to introduce you to the Reflect Orbital, whose goals seem straight out of a dystopian novel.
Let me say that again: Reflect Orbital wants to use a big mirror to artificially illuminate dark places. For a price, of course.
This is only a proof of concept mission. If all goes well, Reflect Orbital wants to put 50,000 of these giant mirrors into orbit by 2035. If it works, the giant mirrors would project a 3 mile wide beam of light onto the Earth’s surface.
As an astronomer and someone who cares about the night sky and everything living thing that needs it, this is obviously concerning. Both the American Astronomical Society and the Royal Astronomical Society in the UK have voiced objections. Astronomy Magazine reports that harming optical astronomy is only the beginning:
But even if that light is only directed to its target, the satellite would be the brightest ever launched according to a European Southern Observatory (ESO) study. To an observer outside the reflected beam, the satellite would appear as bright as Venus — and inside the beam four times brighter than a full moon. AAS argued in a public statement that the satellite puts research telescopes at risk, could momentarily blind pilots or drivers, and “as Reflect Orbital stated in its own FCC filings — [could cause] potential permanent eye damage to anyone looking through a mid-sized telescope.” Scale that up to a future fleet in the tens of thousands and the danger compounds.
Even more concerning is that this entire endeavor - and commercial launches, specifically - have almost no oversight, at least in anyway that matters. In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) covers launch and reentry, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC, the relevant entity here) covers spectrum, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) covers Earth-imaging satellites. However, no one seems to think they have jurisdiction to look at the possible environmental impacts of missions like the one proposed by Reflect Orbital.
This is all extremely upsetting for astronomy, and nature, and safety. But I’m also just…so tired.
Is nothing sacred? I ask this sincerely.
I was never an outdoor kid. We were a Must See TV family. Camping? Forget it. But as I’ve grown older one of the only things that consistently brings me joy is being outside in nature, or, at the very least, outside of earshot of most of the car noise that constantly surrounds me. It makes me feel like I’m living with the planet, not against it or in spite of it. The impulse to control everything - or even the belief that something like that is possible or desirable - starts to fade. Personally, I feel closer to life on the planet when I’m out in nature. It can feel overwhelming, but it also feels peaceful.
I am also someone who has been pretty online since high school. I remember how things used to be. I remember Homestar Runner. I remember searching before Google (hellooooo Altavista). I remember the advent of YouTube. I remember when you needed a .edu address to get on “The Facebook.”
More to the point, I remember when you could purchase software and actually own it. I remember when you could go to the store and get a disk with 3 license for Microsoft Office and you could just…install it on your computer! And you never needed to do anything else.
I remember when there were shows that you wanted to watch on cable. Now I need to subscribe to a dozen different apps.
I remember when Twitter wasn’t a cesspool of white supremacists. It acted as a news feed, but Weird Twitter acted like a salve when it all became too much. It got me through the pandemic, truly.
I remember when I didn’t need a subscription for a note-taking app on my iPad.
I remember when AI wasn’t crammed down our throats by every single tech company out there.
And now we’re on the verge of needing a subscription for sunlight.
Listen…I know I sound like an old man yelling at clouds. But I can’t look at the long-term goals of Reflect Orbital without thinking about how every day life experiences have gotten worse in the last 15-20 years, and why. We’ve given away so much. Our privacy. Our connection. We have to draw the line somewhere, right?
(If you want to know more about why everything seems worse, I cannot recommend enough the Worse on Purpose newsletter.)
Astronomers like to say that the sky is for everyone. This is an excellent sentiment, but at least since the 20th century that hasn’t been true. Light pollution keeps most people from truly appreciating the beauty of the night sky. But just because it’s not currently true doesn’t mean that it can’t be someday and that we shouldn’t work toward that goal. The idea that there could be a private company - anybody really, but especially an entity that is mostly unaccountable - that not only controls the direction of sunlight, but in the process pollutes an already limited resource offends me to my core.
I get the same feeling looking up at a dark night sky that I do when I’m out in nature. I feel small and alone, in a way that makes any connection I can make with the world and people in it feel fragile and precious. Because it is fragile and precious. I don’t think people pay enough attention to what is above their heads. If they did, would they feel our innate connection? Would they think about what it means to be human living on this small planet? I don’t know. I like to think so, but I don’t know.
Maybe I’m being dramatic. Maybe. But here’s what I know: I know that what I have experienced, having lived most of my life on the internet, has not made me confident about the ability to Big Tech to self-regulate. I know that the cycle of light and dark is as important to ecosystems as water and sunshine. And I suspect that harnessing sunshine in this way will have substantial impacts that we don’t expect because no one has done an environmental impact study.
Call me a Luddite (derogatory) if you must, but I prefer to think of my self as a Luddite (complementary). It’s the fucking Sun, for Christ’s sake.
