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Selling the Sun [Jen Sorensen] (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 days ago by cannedtuna@lemmy.world to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world
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Jen Sorensen | Mastodon

TranscriptSelling The Sun

Despite overwhelming objections from scientists, the Trump FCC has approved a space mirror to create “Sunlight on demand.”

Person on Earth in spot being lit by space mirror: What the.?

Among other things, the company promises “unforgettable nighttime experiences for events and public spaces.”

Owl: Not another @&!# midnight corporate retreat!

Besides messing up circadian rhythms, animal navigation, and entire ecosystems, what could go wrong?

Tech bro to astronomer with seared retinas: careful with that telescope! Especially once we have 50,000 of these in orbit.

Coming soon: Blocking the sun unless you pay for it

Farmer in the dark: Hey, what gives?

Tech bro: You haven’t paid your monthly Sun-scription fee!

©2026 Jen Sorensen – jensorensen.com

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[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 63 points 2 days ago

I've often thought that capitalists would monetize access to air if they had a way to block people from freely obtaining it. I guess this isn't too far off.

[-] decolo@piefed.social 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Spaceballs called it

[-] RustyNova@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

That artist is always infuriating me. Not because he's wrong, but because that's exactly what it's going to happen if they can do it.

[-] qaz@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

Luckily it probably won't get made and the company will just rugpull their investors

[-] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

This is how it is going to go. This is the only way it could go. From the scammers at the company, to the idiots investing in them, to the doomers panicking at the repercussions; not a damn one of them has spent even 5 minutes thinking about this from a physics perspective.

[-] qaz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I do wonder if this is similar to Mythos, where the company deliberately stokes fears to get people talking about it and spread the assumption that it will actually happen and is a big deal (and to avoid people's first question about whether it will actually work).

[-] Lightsong@lemmy.world 37 points 2 days ago

I really hope this won't become a thing...

[-] cannedtuna@lemmy.world 64 points 2 days ago
[-] terranoid@lemmy.cafe 61 points 2 days ago

fucking getting real tired of this shit

[-] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 6 points 2 days ago

We keep letting the capitalist parasites live and rule our lives for some reason

[-] Thorry@feddit.org 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Weren't they fully debunked? Like they tried it out with some reflectors on a hot air balloon, that wasn't even very high up. The reflectors weren't very large and pretty shitty. But they showed the number went up when they reflected some light down to a sensor on the ground.

It's an absolute joke, you'd need so many of these things to get even a little bit of coverage. And the performance is terrible. Like it would be worse than a half full moon. It's light but not useful light. And it only lasts a few minutes at max (usually shorter), so what's the point?

This is so fucking dumb, but it fits in the world we live in today.

[-] bequirtle@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

no there isn't. there's a company that "plans to" offer it. the technology probably is not real

[-] fartographer@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

They'll sell it as an improvement to agriculture, a safety feature, or even extended solar energy. They'll use it as a giant magnifying glass to remotely incinerate anyone they dislike without using additional fuel.

And then they'll still argue that solar energy is less efficient than "coal and oil make big boom."

[-] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 29 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Edit: This is real proposal, by an outfit called Reflect Orbital. I thought it might be a given that people reading knew this, but just in case I figure I ought to mention it anyway.

It's a venture capital scam. I've commented on this startup's deeply moronic idea several times, but the takeaway is that the math doesn't work. These guys failed their middle school science classes and are desperately hoping all of their deep pocketed investors did as well. The allure of seeking rent on a natural resource is powerful, though, and of course everyone saw that episode of the Simpsons where Mr. Burns blocks out the sun with his giant disk. So here we are regardless.

You can't reflect any more sunlight onto the Earth's surface than you have surface area of satellites in orbit, and compared to the surface area of the Earth — even the relatively piddling fraction of its potential surface area with owners who might actually pay for such a service — you'd need an absurd number of satellites with enormous footprints, all in stable orbits where keeping them on target on the surface would not be feasible. But even one highly reflective satellite can handily fuck with somebody looking through a telescope, so it's still a dick move even though it self-evidently won't even begin to accomplish its stated purpose.

The Russians already tested such an idea and the results were underwhelming. Illumination over a relatively small area on the order of regular old moonlight is already a pretty piss-poor use of launch fuel when you can accomplish the same results much more easily and cheaply with, you know, terrestrial electric lights. Which we already have. In abundance. Reflect Orbital's proposal that you'd be able to drive solar panels or even grow crops with the things are laughable. For reference, the Znamya satellite only managed to shine a dim patch of light onto the surface for around six minutes, during which the spot raced across most of Europe before the thing was no longer in a position to maintain an acceptable angle of incidence and then passed into the Earth's shadow. The notion of keeping something like that acceptably on target for any useful length of time is laughable, and even then you'd need a whole horde of them all aimed at the same spot to get even part of the way towards the equivalent of daytime illumination.

And putting enough of anything in orbit in order to block out sunlight on anything approaching a meaningful portion of the Earth's surface is right out.

[-] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

if I'm kept up at night because some asshole put mirrors in the night sky I will put all my efforts into destroying that mirror.

I will make sure that no satellite will be able to orbit for the next 2000 years due to all the debris.

fuck greed. fuck corporations. and fuck Donald Trump.

[-] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago

Kessler syndrome's gone from a fear to hope for me too.

[-] black0ut@pawb.social 3 points 2 days ago

I would never complain if all of musk's LEO satellites kessler'd themselves. It would also be a cool light show at night when the debris de-orbits.

[-] arctanthrope@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

I was aware that the FCC has authority over certain types of electromagnetism in the atmosphere, but I didn't think this was quite their jurisdiction

[-] ignirtoq@feddit.online 4 points 2 days ago

You're right. The FCC approved their requested use of radio spectrum for communication with the satellite. They were very clear they were giving approval for this one mission, and for the communication spectrum, not the visible spectrum.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago

The day some unauthorized smartbomb sneaks into orbit closes in.

It could strand us on the planet almost forever btw.

[-] HoneyMustardGas@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

This sounds like it would make a good plot for Futurama.

[-] GrabtharsHammer@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)
[-] Zorque@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago

Yeah, but Futurama got the reflector part:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_of_the_Hot

[-] leave_it_blank@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Actually there was a story where Scrooge McDuck uses a mirror satellite to shine sunlight on a factory of him to cut down costs at night time. He even starts selling it to citizens of Duckburgh. That must have been a story from the 70s.

[-] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 days ago

afaik don't they have the calculations wildly off?

[-] Smoogs@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

and just like that capitalism accidently solves global warming as an unintended side effect. thats when he admits to climate change being real just so he can harp on how he fixed it

[-] 2nko@lemmy.wtf 3 points 2 days ago

reminds me of that one episode in sonic x where eggman creates a similar service except in the form of lamps using a gizmo that blocked the sun to get its power for the lamps

[-] Hairyfishnuts@feddit.online 2 points 2 days ago

Coming soon! Be the first in line!

this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2026
407 points (97.4% liked)

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