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FCC Approves Reflect Orbital's Space Mirror Satellite That Astronomers Hate (ca.pcmag.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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[–] 15 points 4 months ago (4 children)

So just put a 23 million square meter lens near the ground to focus it onto a smaller solar panel. Do I have to do ALL the thinking around here?

(/s because that lens would be so big)

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    I mean they did experiment with solar panels that contain lenses to intensify sunlight and increase efficiency, but it's almost always cheaper to just buy more solar panels. Not even MPPT solar chargers are worth it vs buying one more panel.

    This space mirror is really the perfect example of the pathological stupidity in our era. You just have to listen to the experts, but everyone just wants to push clickbait engagement, so they get funding by some equally moronic investors lol

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I’ll file it up there with “Space data centers” as if any part of that idea even remotely obeys basic physics.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Yeah space compute centers are idiotic. Even if it could be made profitable it would be such a stupid idea.

    The people pushing for privatization of space desperately are looking for profitable uses cases. There is a recent breakthrough with "hollow fiber optic cables" that makes the future promise of faster ping with Starlink mostly irrelevant too.

    We should be building a moon base and explore mining and industry and something like a railgun to shoot back stuff back to earth. That would be the logical next step for humanity. But don't try to commercially exploit space, that is just stupid.

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