Japanese Startup Wants To Rain Down Man-Made Meteor For Tokyo Olympics (sciencealert.com)

A startup called Star-ALE wants to create a man-made meteor shower over the city of Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics opening ceremonies. The pyrotechnics show, Star-ALE says, will be visible from an area 200km across Japan, and the pyrotechnics will actually shower from space. Starting next year, Star-ALE will begin sending a fleet of microsatellites carrying 500 to 1000 specially-developed pellets that ignite and intensely glow as they re-enter the earth's atmosphere. ScienceAlert reports: But wonderment comes at a cost, and in this case, that cost isn't cheap. Each combustible pellet comes in at about $8,100 to produce, and that's not including the costs involved in actually launching the Sky Canvas satellite. The company has tested its source particles in the lab, using a vacuum chamber and hot gases to simulate the conditions the pellets would encounter upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere. In its testing, the particles burn with an apparent magnitude of -1, which should ensure they're clearly visible in the night sky, even in the polluted skyline of a metropolis like Tokyo.

Comments

How sad

[Anonymous Coward]

It saddens my heart to see the billions spent on these sporting events that today have nothing to do with the spirit of the events but everything to do with bolstering ego's of politicians and piss away money. Imagine if this kind of money was used to build infrastructure, provide solutions for clean water and food where needed, I imagine that would be a world less stricken by suffering, poverty and war. It would be a world with fewer refugee crisis as people generally like to live where thwy were born, and if the resources for a decent life existed migration would be for the few adventurous souls rather than for the suffering masses... wake up!!!

Re:How sad

[eyenot]

If you think money solves the world's worst problems, you've lived with a lack of one of two things:

* that kind of money

* any understanding of what's actually causing those kinds of problems

You can't just throw "money" at drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, and despair, and expect them to go away.

In most cases, the money you're throwing goes directly into the hands of people who do the most harm with the most money.

Re:How sad

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't just throw "money" at drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, and despair, and expect them to go away.

Sure you can! Money directly fixes poverty, money buys food and medicine and high quality drugs, and with all those problems solved then despair suddenly vanishes. See your trouble is you just haven't tried the really high quality drugs yet.

Re:How sad

[drinkypoo]

You can't just throw "money" at drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, and despair, and expect them to go away.

You can just throw money at poverty and at least thereby improve the people's lot. It's a better stimulus plan than virtually anything else, because if you give the money directly to people they will usually spend at least a portion of it locally and that also stimulates the economy.

Re:How sad

[turbidostato]

"Why do you think the billions that are spent on sporting events would otherwise be used to help refugees?"

He doesn't.

Saw the part about "it saddens my heart" and "wake up"?

Not too much reading comprehension, do you?

Dont worry

[nukenerd]

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Bad Moderation

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Stop posting as an AC, that would help tremendously.

A fly in the ointment?

[petes_PoV]

should ensure they're clearly visible in the night sky, even in the polluted skyline of a metropolis like Tokyo.

Unless it's cloudy.