Oh God is this the Future?

[carastro]

OMG, I was assuming it would be geostationery, so these kind Chinese are going to do the rest of the world the honour of messing up their dark skies.

Hopefully this will never come into being.

Carole 

 

[sharkmelley]

In geostationary orbit, the mirror would need to be 500 metres in diameter just to give the brightness of one full moon.  Unfortunately, because of the distance of geostationary orbit, it would illuminate an area at least 350km in diameter.  NASA produced a technical paper on it in the 80's which included a map of the UK showing what happens for a geostationary mirror - it would illuminate an area including Blackpool to Dover, Aberystwyth to Gt Yarmouth ?

Mark

[fozzybear]

Funnily enough I watched the film Geostorm last night and this thread sprung to mind of what could happen..... a possibility who knows

[wimvb]

If they make that mirror large enough, we can use it to make selfies with our scopes.

[Les Ewan]

Ironic this is the country that produces most the worlds astronomical telescopes and equipment!

I have heard of the idea before,and I also seem to remember back in the 1980's a US proposal to launch huge magnitude -12 advertising billboards into orbit. I think Coca Cola were interested (probably Mc Donalds too)!

[JimothyC]

As expected, Scott has summarised it well and put it all into perspective.