First artificial meteor shower might outshine natural 'shooting stars'
[...] Tokyo-based ALE (for Astro Live Experiences) pitches itself as a pioneer in the "space entertainment sector." It hopes to conduct a groundbreaking artificial meteor event in 2020 using its first satellite over an area near Hiroshima, where it will be observable by up to 6 million people over an area 200 kilometers (124 miles) wide.
[...] "I hope that our man-made meteors will help reveal new discoveries in science, and that it will gather and entertain people under the night sky," CEO Lena Okajima said in a statement.
The satellite creates its sky show by firing off little pellets a centimeter in diameter that are made up of a proprietary mix of non-toxic materials. The "particles," as ALE calls them, are designed to generate a range of bright colors as they heat up and disintegrate during reentry into the atmosphere, all while still over 60 kilometers (37 miles) above our heads.
Related: Now, meteor shower on demand? Here is Japanese firm’s controversial plan for the ultra-rich
Previously: Company Will Create an "Artificial Meteor Shower" Over Hiroshima, Japan in 2019
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Stuff will be flown into space for the purpose of burning it so people can look at it:
Meteor showers are an awe-inspiring sight, and skywatchers often plan well in advance for their shot at spotting shooting stars as they rain down from the heavens. The rare events have, up until now, been a totally natural phenomenon, but one company is planning on turning on-demand meteor showers into big business, and it's scheduled its first man-made shooting star showcase for early 2019.
The company, called ALE, has created a spectacle it calls Sky Canvas, and it's as close to controlled meteor showers as we may ever get. What makes it so interesting is that this isn't some kind of slight of hand or illusion, but actual material dropped from special satellites burning up in the atmosphere to produce a brilliant light show overhead. It's wild, wild stuff.
The cube-shaped satellites that control ALE's Sky Canvas are tiny — less than two feet on each side — but they carry the proprietary pellets that create the "shooting stars" and can be controlled remotely from the ground. On command, the satellites release their payload, which then falls to Earth and, after coming into contact with the intense friction of the atmosphere, ignite.
Manmade explosions over Hiroshima?
Submitted via IRC for Sulla
Look up at the night sky in 2020 and you might see an ad for McDonald's floating among the stars. A startup is planning to use a constellation of tiny satellites to create glowing ads. The satellites would light up different messages for up to six minutes at a time at about 250 miles above Earth.
Also at Futurism.
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday January 18 2019, @09:19AM (8 children)
>over an area near Hiroshima
It's as if they actively tried to be controversial.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Friday January 18 2019, @09:59AM (1 child)
They want a show, right? I can give them a magnificent show, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Although the Hiroshima people, maybe they have.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday January 18 2019, @10:31AM
Fuck you, biotch! Suck my dick !Fuck You, you, goddamn niggah!
NIGGAH POWAH.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday January 18 2019, @10:32AM (2 children)
ShaDDUP, you gottamn niggah. NHAHAHAHAHA
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday January 18 2019, @04:37PM
You are funny meatbag. You will [4th directive triggered] last.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @05:47PM
EF being stupid. Again.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 18 2019, @03:33PM (2 children)
It's not like an American company was trying to do that. It's an entertainment company based in Japan, run by Japanese. I've never asked a Japanese person about their feelings with regard to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I can't imagine they were happy about it. The thing is we didn't just nuke them and move on. America was integral to the rapid rise of Japan's economy after World War II. Somehow, the USA didn't end up fleecing them, either.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Friday January 18 2019, @04:50PM
I went to the peace museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I highly recommend visiting them if you can. My understanding is that bombing Hiroshima is understood as a logical course of war. However, Nagasaki was only two days later; this did not give the Japanese a chance to surrender and was actually designed to inflate the USA's atomic capacity in the eyes of the Soviets.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday January 18 2019, @06:16PM
It was critically important to prevent the commies from advancing further on the Pacific coast, especially after 1949.
The US propped Japan up because they were scared of them Reds, not out of sheer humanity. And people do know that. The research conducted, and the lies told, by the US at both bombing places, are also known to have been ethically "questionable", and caused more deaths, especially in a country where the dead are revered.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @09:43AM (2 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Friday January 18 2019, @12:26PM
Surface area to volume ratios and density issues make the orbit unsustainable.
With a ton of hand waving, and no references other than memory, given a steel i-beam pointy end on, and a rigid hot air balloon (technically a blimp), of the same mass and the same relatively low orbit, the beam can stay in orbit a couple weeks and the balloon won't make it even one complete orbit.
Those microsats and suitsats tossed out the airlock of the ISS can't survive more than a couple days/weeks at ISS orbit, whereas the ISS without reboosting can make it a couple months.
A big dense log-shaped satellite might make it a couple weeks until it passes over Hiroshima then poop out some firework sand granules that won't survive more than a fraction of an orbit.
This was also a very popular / secret research topic WRT "rod from god" orbital bombardment systems from decades ago. People unfamiliar with the tech think you get 100% of orbital energy, but reality is the speed-brake deployment tech is complicated, unreliable, expensive, and wastes a significant fraction of energy on the way down. Your "rod from god" weapon retro rocket can be much smaller than you think if you're only lowering the lowest point of orbit to extreme upper atmosphere and put the rod sideways in orbit.
Catbox style "clumping" could be a significant issue if their powders stick due to heat or some kind of chemical cold welding. That could easily be avoided with some chemistry and mech-engineering work.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 18 2019, @03:38PM
Science! In actuality, it takes a Lot of Momentum to stay in orbit. They aren't going to be spending any more than they have to in order to perform their stunt. Putting something up in Orbit that will stay in Orbit for a long time, takes a lot of Money.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Funny) by VLM on Friday January 18 2019, @12:27PM (1 child)
If you thought astronomers were butthurt about crazy bright streetlights pointing up just to F with them, wait until you get nightly re-entrys of "drink diet coke" up in the sky right in front of research telescopes.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday January 18 2019, @04:52PM
But they can enjoy a refreshing Diet Coke and wonder about how it can taste so good with zero calories!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @05:36PM (1 child)
So are they sending a bill to each of those 6 million people?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 18 2019, @07:34PM
No this is for huge corps and the 1%, you can anticipate huge projected ads on the moon next, at 10 million per ad
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday January 18 2019, @06:53PM
There ought to be a treaty against this kind of thing. Of course then Japan would probably just ignore that and re-enter a sperm whale and a potted plant or something.
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