Mastodawn

FCC reply comments are due by 5pm EDT Monday 30 March on Reflect Orbital. If you wrote in a comment, please please please write in again saying that they did not address your concerns in their letter (which is very hard to find in the FCC dumpster-fire-of-a-website). Instructions here: https://aas.org/posts/advocacy/2026/02/how-submit-comments-satellite-applications-fcc

The most horrifying part in their "consolidated reply": they agree that they could in fact cause permanent eye damage to people using medium-sized telescopes. WILD.

Show thread

Prof. Sam Lawler Mar 28

Any journalists want to write about this? Or anyone know how to figure out who insures Reflect Orbital? Reflect Orbital will cause eye damage to people using telescopes, as astronomers have previously calculated, and they openly admitted it in their reply.

(There is a whole slew of absolutely devastating ecological damage they will also cause, but I'm focusing on this one for now because it's so shocking)

Show thread

Cat West Mar 29

@sundogplanets A long time ago I worked for an insurance company that at the time, was only one of 3 that insured the Bigs: Disneyland, The Shuttle launches, etc. Our company insured the Space Shuttles. Factory Mutual. I don’t know if they are still around and I can’t remember the name of the other two, but someone in the industry should be able to lead you to them. There can’t be more than a few.

Show thread

GLC 4d ago

@Catawu

Interesting company (i'm gettnig sidetracked admittedly).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_(insurance)

FM (insurance) - Wikipedia

Show thread

Cat West

@glc Yeah, it was. And they didn’t want to pay my salary but wanted me to do 5 jobs for roughly the price of one — They needed 5 of me in there. I wasn’t about to set myself up for that kind of abuse. There were really nice people there, just not in management.