'Space graffiti': astronomers angry over launch of fake star into sky | Hacker News Reader

'Space graffiti': astronomers angry over launch of fake star into sky

theguardian.com

81 pointsgooseus74 comments

This is utterly, utterly overblown.

The Space Station is thousands of times bigger and throws back a hundred times more light than this will.

Every evening, for most of the populated world, dozens of brighter satellites than this go overhead. I just checked the orbits for my evening here - 57 brighter satellites.

But what about the flashing? Well, we've got those already too. The old, awesome Iridium satellites have giant antennas that act like mirrors. When one beams the sun onto you at night for a few seconds, it's hundreds of times brighter than the Humanity Star. The Hitomi, a failed Japanese weather satellite, flashes every second or so as it spins - again, much brighter than this will ever be.

And worries about Kessler syndrome for this object in a very low earth orbit? Even if every satellite in similar orbit magically exploded tomorrow, the debris would be gone in less than year. In the meantime we could still launch to other orbits. Kessler syndrome is overhyped in general, and a complete non-issue this low.

No. It's good to criticize this now, before everyone starts doing it. I really don't want ad banners in the sky twenty years from now.

I cannot wait for the day when everyone has equal access to launching their disco balls into space.

I have one in my basement just taking up space, it should be taking up space.

That pun is out of this world!

Those served an actual purpose though. They weren't just shoved into space just to say, "hey look at what we did". That's the point they're making. Don't pollute space just because you can.

EDIT: typos

One could argue: this one gets press, which gets funding, which is quite important for science.

that's a good point

This also serves a purpose - there had to be a payload to properly test the rocket.

It'll come down in 9 months or so.

Also, from LEO, it's not that visible.

> It is expected to become the brightest object in the night sky for nine months until it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere.

That sounds like a pretty big deal to me.

There’s no way it’s true though. It’s simply not big enough.

How did you "check the orbits for your evening"? just curious, i would like to check my own from time to time and have a look on a clear night. If it is something a layman can do?

http://heavens-above.com

First you’ll need to set your location, then click on “daily predictions for brighter satellites”.

For your first time watching, look for ones brighter that 3.0 (maginitudes get brighter as the number gets smaller. So a 6.0 isn’t one most people can see with their eyes, 2.0 is a bright, easy to see star and a zero is one of the brightest stars in the sky). Also make sure the satellite is going to be high enough in the sky to see. It’s great fun!

Definitely also look on heavens-above for upcoming ISS flybys. You’ll notice that the brightness varies a bit. Catch a bright one, (with a big negative number) and be amazed for life.

this is awesome, thanks

This is the site I normally use: http://heavens-above.com/main.aspx

There's lots of similar websites and apps now if you search around.

It's the precedent. We do not want space based ads.

Do you want space colonies, commercial stations and activity? Cause I don't think you'll get one without the other.

We can't have space colonies or commercial stations without space advertising?

No, but you can't until someone pays to develop the technology.

Right... how does space advertising relate to that though? Are you saying that's the only viable business model for space travel and colonization?

No. but it's one. And, since we don't quite know which one will pay the bill, we need each and every model we can get.

Sure. A house is not an ad. What I don't want is a malt liquor billboard in orbit.

Remember how ads were disallowed on the internet, as a sort of gentleman’s agreement? Didn’t last long

> director of astrobiology at Columbia University Caleb Scharf wrote in Scientific American, the star represented "another invasion of my personal universe"

There's hyperbole, and then there's comments like that. His "personal universe"?

Honestly I dont see a problem with this statement. People have their own sphere, domain, topic that they are engrossed in and love over everything. He just happened to call it his personal universe (which I think is pretty fitting)

I don't read that as any sort of claim of ownership, merely that this ridiculous fake-star stunt has impacted his life, which is probably mostly removed from such inanities as it involves astronomy.

I read that comment as making an analogy to intrusive advertising.

That's how I read it, too. And I can somehow relate to it. In many places, you can't walk down the street without being annoyed by ads. You'd have to go through parks and nearby woods. And now it doesn't even help to go camping far away in a natural reservate without being annoyed by ads (at night).

Great, NIMBYs now want to stop space development. And it's just for 9 months, take a chill pill.

Personally I think it's awesome, I'm going to try to track it and show it to my daughter. I hope one day we'll have structures on the moon that are visible to the naked eye! Can you imagine how motivating and achievable that would make space exploration seem to a new generation.

Why don't you track the ISS instead. It is orders of magnitude more interesting than a disco ball.

Imagine explaining this to your daughter :

- Here is the ISS, people live there.

- This is the Hubble space telescope, it makes plenty of nice pictures.

- This is a communication satellite, it for making phone calls from anywhere in the world.

- This... is a giant disco ball, it is made so you can see it.

Putting up what is essentially a space billboard is the kind of space development we can do without. And this is what astronomers are complaining about. It is not for the object itself, it is for the precedent it sets.

It was also a test payload for a new rocket that achieved orbit for the first time.

Do you want regulations? This is how you get regulations.

Once low Earth orbit is easily accessible to anyone, what can be done? There are all kinds of intentional and unintentional misuses of such a capability.

There is a metric ton of regulation you can’t launch anything into space without going thorough a mile of red tape.

Apparently no one consulted astronomers with this case most likely as no one expected a use case where someone launches a freaking disco ball into low earth orbit.

That's sort of my point though. Every edge case that gets exposed gets another regulation.

Well Elon Musk is about to launch a Tesla into Martian orbit perhaps its time to put orbits other than sol orbits under the regulatory red tape.

> Do you want regulations? This is how you get regulations.

A finite resource, great cost necessary to access it, danger of catastrophic failure when things collide. Long-lasting consequences of such failure.

I'd expect regulation in this scenario. It seems inevitable and necessary.

I’d hardly call space a finite resource.

Access to space might be.

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

Kessler syndrome is an issue, but not for this particular object. It will stay in orbit for about 9 months before decaying. Residual objects from a collision would decay even faster.

> The most commonly used orbits for both manned and unmanned space vehicles are low earth orbits, which cover an altitude range low enough for residual air drag to be sufficient to help keep the zone clear.

The visible expanse of the night sky is finite. Low-earth orbits are certainly finite.

We are talking about Earth orbits useful for satellites, sorry if that wasn't clear.

Do we not have a global regulating body for what people can put in LEO? Cause I'm gonna have to say yes on this one.

A 9-month occasional bright light in the sky is a brief annoyance for astronomers, but avoiding the Kessler Syndrome should be a global imperative.

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

The forces that make Kesser Syndrome an issue in high orbits work in reverse in low orbits. Two objects in an otherwise fairly stable orbit that collide with each other in LEO will break into pieces, each of which will far more rapidly encounter atmospheric drag (much more surface area / volume on the fragments) and deorbit than the original objects would have. Instead of a chain reaction mess, you get a self-cleaning mess.

I have to say "otherwise fairly stable" because technically, there is no stable low Earth orbit because atmospheric drag will drag down any orbiting object within a human timespan.

Haven't you seen The Astronaut Farmer? Billy Bob had a hell of a time getting permission to launch himself into space. Had to finally just do it.

Oh come now. There are a lots of orbiting objects that cause bright flashes. The flashes this particular object causes are not even that bright. I suspect that anyone who pointed this out were not quoted... Particularly the astronomers who thought the whole thing was awesome... Astronomers are bothered by any sunlight illuminated satellite. This will make no difference at all to their lives.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_flare

Sure, but the point of those satellites is not to make a flash in the sky. The whole point of the disco ball is to dazzle.

Actually the older Iridium satellites were intended to make a flash in the sky. The three aluminium antennas were highly-polished for no other reason than visibility; free publicity. There were some thermal benefits but not significant.

The later blocks of satellites have a different antenna design and do not reflect as much.

A more sigificant astronomical impact of Iridium as a tangent, is that their transmissions on 1612 MHz interefere with radio astronomy observations of hydroxyl. In contrast a single 'disco ball' zipping around LEO for a few months is trivial.

Do you have a cite on it being intentionally polished to create flares? The new generation has a smaller, redesigned antenna, but I can't find anything on the original being a conscious design choice instead of just a side-effect of "we want to reflect EM as well as possible".

My astronomer friend says this isn’t really different from any other satellite with reflective shielding.

But presumably those other satellites are at least serving a useful purpose.

I think it's an interesting project. That's enough for me to consider it useful, or at least not worthless.

Being a test payload for a new rocket is useful.

Indeed, a verifiable payload is useful.

Graffiti artist here. Space junk is a general problem I understand so theres nothing special about this device other than that it doesn't serve as anything but a marketing gimmick/artistic gesture.

Street art / graffiti is done by people who want others to read their names and see their art. It's the ultimate act of hubris to say that others should experience your art unfiltered and without a choice in the matter. You invade public space, upset people's comfort zone, and get them to think. Even if it's just "wow look at all the colors and lines". Just wait till they start projecting ads on the moon then yall will be really pissed off.

This has me thinking about how absurd privacy/protection of vision can be. If I stand in my apartment and face my photon receptors towards the apartment across the street, place some carefully constructed glass lenses in front of them, and receive photons from the sun bouncing off the surface of a pretty specimen, that is pretty universally abhorred behaviour. Of course this is absurdly reductionist. But interesting, nonetheless.

If you don't like the giant "PEPSI PRESENTS: MARS" billboard we placed in space, close your curtains at night!

Privacy is a social construct. Its definition mainly depends on how people feel about it. That doesn't make it not useful, I mean that maybe we should try to protect our experience of the night sky even if the reasons aren't too rigorous.

Some comments have intoned "it's not that bright," but from the article "It is expected to become the brightest object in the night sky for nine months"

Can anyone shed some information on this?

I know if someone made it difficult for me t oget my planned work done for the next nine months, my boss and I would be pretty ticked off.

There's no possible way this is the brightest thing in the night sky - it's simply not that big, and most of the light that hits it will not be going towards you because of the facets.

The only number I've seen puts it at 4.0 magnitude when flashing. That's hard to see with the naked eye from a US city, and there are about 500 stars brighter than that.

I am more concerned about the precedent that this sets. But then again, I am way more concerned about many other things.

And I once did the math on how heavy a mylar spherical balloon would need to be to have the apparent size of the Moon from 150 km of altitude and concluded that it could be launched from an Ariane 5 (at about 14000 kg or so).

I'd be a very unpopular person if someone decided to pay for the project.

man if there's one thing gets astronomers worked up it's light from any other source than what they're interested in.

And rightfully so.

I see you can track its current position here: http://www.thehumanitystar.com/#tracker but a flyby predictor is notable by its absence, I wonder why that should be?

Click 'Find My Location' in the top left of the map view.

Aha! Thanks.

On the other hand, it's now easier for astronomers to launch small telescopes out of the atmosphere ...

Is there a tracker?

The main page of the Humanity Star site has one if you scroll down a bit.

http://www.thehumanitystar.com

The Rutherford engine alone and its manufacturing process is a far greater accomplishment than any one of these “scientists” has ever managed. Maybe they ought to come and join the real world?

This isn't 'space' though is it; its low earth orbit. I wouldn't care if they'd fired it into intergalactic space but they didn't, they just added to our halo of orbiting garbage purely to grab some cheap publicity.

They put it in low earth orbit. It's orbit will decay in about 9 months and it will burn up in the atmosphere.

It wasn't just for cheap publicity. It was a test payload of a new rocket.

Hm. "The heavens" is a protected area, like a wilderness or polar bear? What hubris - tiny humans feeling possessive about the entirety of the universe. Something very off here. And these are exactly the people who should appreciate our insignificance in the cosmos.

Maybe they just expressed themselves badly. Its our 'sphere of observation' or some such, that they feel is being badly treated?

I'd argue the hubris is going the other way: launching shiny stuff into space that everyone has to look at. It's launching trash into space, IMHO, and I reacted quite negatively at first as well.

Nobody has to look at it. Any more than the rest of the stuff going by on a dark night. Which folks in the city can't see anyway.

No this issue is overheated silliness.

Just wait when coca-cola and friends fill the skies with their own logo constellations when (not if) space technology gets cheap enough. After all, it only needs to be cheaper than conventional ad campaigns to be viable.

Imagine going camping or into sea and having a canvas of logos everywhere you look at during the night.

Nobody has to look at it right?

Dismissing this issue as "overheated silliness" is extremely naive and short-sighted.

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