Highest Canadian nerd achievement UNLOCKED I'M SO EXCITED!!!!
QUIRKS AND QUARKS!!!!!!!!
And that was all because of Mastodon, thanks all! (Especially @mayintoronto whose comment got a Quirks and Quarks producer to get in touch with me via BlueSky-Fedi bridge. Wild. WILD.)
I just sent probably the most pretentious email I've ever sent in my life to some colleagues: "I'd love to meet up for lunch! But my interview with Bob McDonald for Quirks and Quarks might get scheduled at that time."
(AAAAHHHH!!! SO EXCITED!!!)
I just did my pre-interview for Quirks and Quarks. I am slightly less excited now, just because the pre-interview made it clear how completely fucking depressing this interview is going to be!
I have nothing good to say. I have no concrete actions for people to take. All I have are predictions about how unsafe, destructive, and environmentally catastrophic Reflect Orbital will be.
I sure hope I get a chance to work in something about how incredible the unpolluted night sky is, at least? Ooof.
Just got an email from a astronomer colleague who got asked by their local CBC station to do an interview tomorrow. "Do you know anything about Reflect Orbital?"
Hahah, sorry dude, it's sort of my fault that you have to talk about it. The campaign to reach out to journalists to educate the public about how terrible Reflect Orbital is is definitely working!
Going to add some pretty things to this thread.
Because today is Quirks and Quarks interview day(!!!), and at this point I'm about equal parts INCREDIBLY EXCITED to be on that show, and SUPER PISSED OFF that instead of getting to talk about cool astronomy research, I have to talk about a fucking stupid terrible techbro idea.
We're in a time when one tiny awful company in California can change the night sky for everyone in the world. The only tool I have to fight this is public opinion.
The FCC has explicitly stated that they plan to approve everything https://www.satellitetoday.com/government-military/2025/10/28/fcc-kicks-off-proceeding-to-overhaul-satellite-licensing/. There is no way to stop stupid fucking mirrors from being launched into orbit by US companies.
So, my fellow Canadians (and other non-USians), I need you to get really, really angry about this. Write to MPs, space agencies, senators, to anyone who will listen about this company wanting to shine light on us.
The sky is amazing! We have so much to learn! And it's just right there if we can keep it dark.
And yeah, oh my goodness, there are SO MANY THINGS to fight against right now. Pick one and talk to your government reps about it! If you love the sky, pick this fight. If you love something else that's being destroyed, focus on that. If you have no spoons left, be yourself and fight by existing and thriving!
I'm happy to lead this fight. I hope it works. Thanks for reading and appreciating how incredibly fucking stupid space mirrors are.
Do I need to practice saying "Znamya" just in case I get asked about it? (Because Russia already tried the fucking stupid space mirror thing decades ago and it didn't work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamya_(satellite))
I have never said this before, but I kind of wish I had more meetings this morning to distract myself from overthinking the Quirks and Quarks interview...
Tomorrow I have an interview with the New York Times about that fucking space mirror company. Also an interview about Dark and Quiet Skies in general for the Supermassive podcast https://www.izzieclarke.com/supermassive
Wowee. I need a nap after that adrenaline let down (but meetings and afterschool kid things are not going to let me do that...)
Somehow getting to brag about being on Quirks and Quarks to the lady who works at my small town post office and always asks me space questions made me feel a LOT better about all of this.
(I bet dinner will make me feel even better! Time to get off the computer...)
My dark and quiet skies interview for the Supermassive podcast got moved to next week (totally ok with that) but I still have an interview with the New York Times today about That Fucking Stupid Space Mirror Company.
Other than that, I need to write some things today! The weather is awful (high winds and rain/snow all day) so maybe that will encourage buckling down and writing...
Ha, this totally sounds like compliment fishing, doesn't it? It's more just "this interview that I stressed out about all week just aired" and I don't want to listen to it because I'm stressed about it. But I want other people to listen to it!
...this is all just Impostor Syndrome again, isn't it? GAH.
Time to go back outside to my goats and dogs (and llama) who never have any impostor-y thoughts.
Picking up this thread for a little experiment you could run tonight with the nearly full moon: This will be most effective if you can get to a dark place with no streetlights, but even if you're in a city, you can probably find a dark spot and see your shadow from the moon.
Look around you, and notice what's lit up by the moon. You really don't need artificial light on full moon nights. The full moon is REALLY BRIGHT. It actually hurts to look at it once your eyes are dark adjusted.
Now imagine something 4 times brighter that the full moon, but a single point source, moving across the sky as fast as a Starlink satellite. It's so bright that it would definitely not feel good to look at, and would instantly ruin your night vision (for 20 min or so). But if you look at it with binoculars or a telescope, you could permanently damage your eyes.
This is what Reflect Orbital wants to do.
Sounds like something a mad scientist supervillain would build.
@sundogplanets
I just looked at the project, and honestly, it just feels like one of those stupid "tech bros reimagining trains but actually ruining all the things that make trains efficient" projects.
But maybe that's just me.
.. meanwhile on the other side of the equator ..
Spend the evening outside, enjoying the spring, liberating by the way a snake found on the terrace like a week ago:
Angehängt: 1 Video Otra liberacion de una #bothropsPubescens en las cierras de #CerroLargo en #Uruguay. Una breve recopilacion del material del dia de hoy. #naturaleza #proteccionMedioambiental
Is that a llama in the second picture? I guess there aren’t any llama dentists in your area.
@sundogplanets
Goats will give you a sense of proportion.
Especially when they eat all your cabbages, Brussel sprouts and buttons of clothes on the line..
I've no experience of llamas. Are they like a goat and camel combined?
@sundogplanets
I listened to it this morning. You sounded passionate and knowledgeable. 👏👏👏
I wish the interview could have been longer so you could talk more about space junk in general and sheer volume of crap being launched into orbit.
You did good. You explained it all really well. I wish you had been given more time to get into it in more depth. It's easy to learn from you. More people need to hear this, and more from you. Keep up the good fight. 
LISTEN | Samantha Lawler explains why she’s against selling sunlight:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/nov-1-fraud-rhinos-mirrors-kirigami-9.6961695
On this week's episode: selling sunlight on demand, rhinos roamed Canada’s Arctic 23 million years ago, making a more precise parachute using kirigami, the winner of this year's prestigious Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal and uncovering widespread scientific fraud.
Congratulations!
you'll be fine, and if not the goats say they can distract you....
According to Wikipedia the spot traveled at a speed of 8 km/sec (5 mi/sec), that is 28800 km/h.
Pretty useless.
@GustavinoBevilacqua @sundogplanets Yeah, and even if they steered the mirror (which wouldn't be hard, earth observation satellites can track a point on the ground), a satellite in low orbit could only keep the spot aimed at a particular patch of ground for minutes at a time before the satellite disappears below the horizon
An actually usable mirror satellite would need to be in GEO, and that would necessitate a much larger mirror to get a useful spot size
@raymaccarthy @sundogplanets Hey, Orion was a good idea!
And this latest russian missile is just a worse (only high subsonic speed rather than mach 3 on the deck lol) knockoff of a 1960s US design that advanced as far as successful testing of the nuclear ramjet
@sundogplanets I can at least help with pointing to the respective House and Senate subcommittees with FCC oversight and their members:
US House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology
https://energycommerce.house.gov/committees/subcommittee/communications-technology
US Senate Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Media
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/commerce-subcommittees
Read articles on why Reflect Orbital is stupid and make a list of points you want to make. Find your members and write!
@sundogplanets Thanks for doing this. Congrats on getting on Quirks and Quarks (such a great title) and thanks for calling out that Techbro.
The night sky is amazing and I miss seeing it in this city.
If Reflect Orbital put their stupid fucking mirrors in orbit, maybe we can crowd source a giant laser to push them off course with radiation pressure?
They'll have a communications system, to control them. A nice little challenge for hackers, then. Can you get them to shine at each other enough to break them?
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