The Russian Plan To Use Space Mirrors To Turn Night Into Day (vice.com)

merbs writes: Throughout the early 90s, a team of Russian astronomers and engineers were hellbent on literally turning night into day. By shining a giant mirror onto the earth from space, they figured they could bring sunlight to the depths of night, extending the workday, cutting back on lighting costs and allowing laborers to toil longer. If this sounds a bit like the plot of a Bond film, well, it's that too. The difference is that for a second there, the scientists, led by Vladimir Sergeevich Syromyatnikov, one of the most important astronautical engineers in history, actually pulled it off.

Comments

Insanity.

[Anonymous Coward]

Has there been any thought given as to what this might do to the flora and fauna? Screwing up diurnal rhythms, mating seasons, migrations, etc. I mean seriously, this screams terrible idea.

Re:Insanity.

[captjc]

Yeah, but just think of it, a 168 hour work week. People will no longer need to go home at night and can work 24/7! Think of all the profits!

Plus the syndicates will finally be free of that menace, Batman. There is no Batman if there is no night time.

Re:Insanity.

[wired_parrot]

From the article, they were planning on lighting up urban areas only. The mirrors wouldn't be large enough to light up more than a city, and the light would only have been the equivalent of a bright moonlight. And cities already have electric illumination at night. So this would only be substituting current electric night time lighting in city centers with the reflected light, which would have the advantage of cutting energy costs. The idea was being pitched as an energy saving measure for city centers. It's not so terrible if limited to urban centers.

Re:Insanity.

[OrangeTide]

As you get closer to the poles (higher latitude), the diurnal rhythms get a bit messed up, at least for non-native species like us humans. Long nights in the winter results in various health issues and depression. At around 60 N we're talking about only 4 hours of daylight, but a human is most comfortable at around 12 hours of daylight.

Re:Insanity.

[fche]

Maybe not much. Each 200m-diameter mirror illuminating a 5700m-diameter area on the ground implies a 1:28 reduction of light intensity right there.

Re:Insanity.

[demonlapin]

Again, I don't know why you guys do this shit for megacorps. Some startup where you might become a billionaire? Hey, I can see killing yourself for a couple of those in your early 20s in hopes you hit the jackpot. But Microsoft? Hell, Google? They're already huge. They've already made their billionaires, and you weren't one of them. Get a job at a company that will pay you for working tolerable hours at a fair rate.

This also goes a long way to explaining the difference in pay between flyover country and the coasts. "Oh, yeah, I pay more for the apartment, but I have a lot more disposable income"... and no time in which to spend it. I get nine weeks of paid vacation a year. You can have that when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Re:Insanity.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article, they were planning on lighting up urban areas only. The mirrors wouldn't be large enough to light up more than a city, and the light would only have been the equivalent of a bright moonlight. And cities already have electric illumination at night. So this would only be substituting current electric night time lighting in city centers with the reflected light, which would have the advantage of cutting energy costs. The idea was being pitched as an energy saving measure for city centers. It's not so terrible if limited to urban centers.

Sure it's not such a terrible energy saving measure...unless the cost to build the damn thing was eleventy bazillion dollars, sending your ROI into fucking orbit.

Don't give a shit who you are or what your currency is. Space shit ain't cheap.

Re:Insanity.

[Gates82]

It would actually be a reduction of 812:1; given that the ratio between the area of two circles is ratio bewteen their diameters squared.

--
MGB

Re:Insanity.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I used to work insane hours like that. Never helped me when downsizing came around. Work for your boss to climb? Never again.

Re:Insanity.

[painandgreed]

Sure it's not such a terrible energy saving measure...unless the cost to build the damn thing was eleventy bazillion dollars, sending your ROI into fucking orbit.

Don't give a shit who you are or what your currency is. Space shit ain't cheap.

Some quick Googleing and I see that Boston, as an example, spends 8 million annually just on street lights and space X costs $100 to 260 million for a launch. Assuming a 20 year lifespan of the satellite, you end up with $160 million to mess around with. So it's not completely absurd that such a plan might pay for itself if it can be done with a single satellite that is cheap enough and lasts long enough. If doing multiple cities, there might be some savings in manufacture of satellites as they aren't all one offs.

Re:Insanity.

[Gavagai80]

Keep in mind that you can't stop maintaining the street lights and you'll have to use them a lot of nights, because space mirrors don't work when it's cloudy or foggy.

Re:Insanity.

[Dynedain]

That other $160M will probably need to be spent on the satellite itself (design, construction, monitoring, orbital adjustments, etc). There went the budget! Not to mention ruining your citizen's night vision even more than what they currently experience.

Street lighting is a good solution as it can be installed only where necessary. Blanketing an entire city with uniform night time lighting is an incredible waste of resources.

Now if it could be used for energy generation or telecommunications instead, then I think there's something to the idea.

Re:Insanity.

[OffTheWallSoccer]

Pardon my asking, but what type of job affords nine weeks of paid vacation? I'm envious!

Must have been a slow day at Motherboard

[Crashmarik]

Does take a certain something to try and recast a 20 year old failure as a great success

Obligatory Joke

[scunc]

In Soviet Russia, night lights you!

Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lights

[SteveSgt]

"Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting"
[ http://www.urbanwildlands.org/... ]

Makes sense

[garyoa1]

Since global warming is pretty slow. Gotta speed it up somehow.

Re:Makes sense

[NotInHere]

In fact, if you put the mirror into Lagrange point L1, it can be used to prevent some of sun's light to reach earth, thus lowering solar input, and chilling the climate. Probably the idea sounds as insane as the one to build the hoover dam sounded to others back then*...

    (* yes some (not all roads are cool) of the giant buildings trump proposes are insane as well, and I hope it won't be seen differently in the future)

Re:Makes sense

[Immerman]

Nope, just the opposite. Fossil fuels contribute about 1,000,000x more energy in the form of thermal retention by CO2 than they do as combustion heat. Eliminate the CO2 and you can have 1,000,000 times as much light for the same impact on global warming.

then we'd know who the space vampires are

[turkeydance]

i've been told we need to know.

Re:global warming alert

[alphatel]

i will buy that real estate and wait for the equator to become a desert.

It isn't already?

Already been done...sort of

[Roger W Moore]

It has already been done - sort of - by a town in Norway that uses mirrors to reflect sunlight down into the valley to extend the daylight hours. At a reasonably high latitude in the northern hemisphere there are not many flora or fauna to worry about in the middle of winter in an urban setting.

The only time you'd need to worry about it is if they focus the light a lot to create a heat based-death ray. That would also be far more like the plot of a bond film...

Re:Already been done...sort of

[jklovanc]

The Norway installation is there not to extend daylight but to direct sunlight to the town square so that people can experience direct sunlight. They used to get no direct sunlight for six months of the year. It would be unsettling to be in the shade six months of the year.

Re:so overcomplicated

[blackiner]

Yes, the Simpsons taught us the capitalist version of this plot: Local billionaire creates a device to blot out the Sun and sell electricity from his nuclear plant to the town 24/7.