In one Chinese city, costly streetlights could soon be a thing of the past.
By 2020, the Tian Fu New Area Science Society plans to launch an artificial moon to light up the night sky. If the plan goes through, the so-called “illumination satellite” would orbit above the Chinese city of Chengdu and glow in conjunction with the actual moon, but shine eight times brighter. The organization says it will launch three more satellites in 2022 — potentially replacing streetlights in urban areas. The plans were announced by Wu Chunfeng, head of the society, at an innovation conference in Chengdu on October 10.
Chunfeng told China Daily that the satellite, launching from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, will orbit about 300 miles (500 kilometers) above the city and use its mirror-like coating to reflect sunlight down to Earth.
Despite shining light in a similar way, the satellite boasts one advantage that the moon doesn’t — human control. Chunfeng says that both the location and brightness of the human-made moon can be changed, and that it can be completely shut off if necessary. And since the satellite is mobile, it can assist in disaster relief by beaming light on areas that lost power.
In an article I read, they said that China will be testing in an uninhabited “desert” area first to check the potential ecological effects.
Another interesting point in that same article was that the ‘moons’ wouldn’t cover a very large area, only up to 50 miles in diameter. Still, they might be useful in some ways, if they don’t destroy the Earth. How many of us haven’t seen what happens when sunlight is concentrated in a spot?
P.S. While we’re on the subject of sunlight being concentrated on a spot, who trusts China to NOT use this as a weapon in the future? :smiling_imp:
Tldw: It would only light a small area for a few minutes on a few nights each month. It isn’t possible to use it as a weapon against ground targets. He also looks at how impractical a “useful” system in geo orbit would be.
Getting worse, because some arty-farties seem to have got enough money together to actually do it.
There was talk of space reflectors focussing down sunbeams onto solar farms, as there was also talk of using them as solar shades to combat “climate change”.
By the way, the Hubble telescope is actually just a re-purposed Keyhole satellite spare, donated. Except they forgot to focus it on infinity instead of the Earth below, hence the need to add the “spectacles”.
