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

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

Posted by msmash on Saturday May 21, 2016 @07:30PM from the man-made-rain-is-so-yesterday dept.

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.

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How sad by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-21 20:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

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!!!
1. Re:How sad by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-21 20:19 · Score: 1
  
  Why do you think the billions that are spent on sporting events would otherwise be used to help refugees? It makes no sense to assume that any of this would be allocated to helping anyone but the politicians currently using it to bolster their egos
2. Re:How sad by eyenot · 2016-05-21 20:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  --
  "Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
3. Re:How sad by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-21 20:34 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  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.
4. Re: How sad by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-21 20:58 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I really enjoy the sports at the Olympics, but I don't care for the excess. A big part of Greece's financial issues go back to the tremendous amount of public debt from hosting the Olympics in 2004. Priority should be given to cities that already have much of the required infrastructure instead of building it. There also needs to be a plan for how any new venues will be used in the future. In addition to being more financially responsible, it would be more environmentally friendly and produce less waste.
5. Re: How sad by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-21 21:03 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Greece would be in a better position to handle the influx of refugees if they weren't in a ridiculous amount of debt. Life in Greece would be much better off in general without the debt. A lot of that debt came from hosting the 2004 Olympics. In this case, Greece funded the Olympics with money they didn't have and might well not have otherwise been spent.
6. Re:How sad by drinkypoo · 2016-05-21 22:02 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  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.
  
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7. Re:How sad by turbidostato · 2016-05-21 22:10 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  "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?
8. Re:How sad by turbidostato · 2016-05-21 22:17 · Score: 2
  
  "If you think money solves the world's worst problems..."
  If you think those problems do solve themselves without lots of money you also lack "any understanding of what's actually causing those kinds of problems"
  That they can't be solved "just throwing money" doesn't mean they don't require a lot of money thrown at them (oh, and by the way: poverty does solve itself just throwing money at it, by its own very definition).
9. Re:How sad by kuzb · 2016-05-21 22:22 · Score: 1
  
  Actually it's about boosting economies. Sporting events like this draw people from all over the world who in turn spend their money there. Local businesses turn a huge profit during the Olympics.
  
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10. Re:How sad by AK+Marc · 2016-05-21 22:45 · Score: 1
  
  You can just throw money at poverty and at least thereby improve the people's lot.
  Nope. But the slumlords they live under will profit well from it. That's the problem with throwing money at the problem. So many have already positioned themselves to profit from the misery of others, that they will actively work to prevent the money from getting to the needed locations and uses.
  
  --
  Learn to love Alaska
11. Re:How sad by jellomizer · 2016-05-21 23:22 · Score: 1
  
  The problem is that right now the olympics is so centered around national (for the United States is is closer to State Pride) pride, where each host country is trying to show look at us we are relevant in world affairs.
  However when it is hosted in a rich country like the United States and many european countries , we are able to spend money on grandiose effects, as the infrastructure is already there and has cities that can deal with hosting such events.
  Smaller countries cannot, and they really need more effort into supporting the event and less worrying about trying to awe the people, but get them to enjoy your country.
  For Japan, Tokyo is a major city, and japan is #3 largest economy outside of United States and China. Which is actually rather amazing that it is such a small country. So they can afford some extra. However Brazille being #7 on the list will need more effort into infrastructure and less on impressing.
  
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  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
12. Re:How sad by Livius · 2016-05-22 00:56 · Score: 1
  
  Indiscriminately throwing money at problems doesn't create solutions, it creates well-funded problems.
13. Re:How sad by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-05-22 01:34 · Score: 1
  
  "Not too much reading comprehension, do you?"
  Not when write like, you do.
  Inadvertently hilarious.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
14. Re:How sad by ljw1004 · 2016-05-22 02:13 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  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.
  Strangely enough, you can just throw money directly into the hands of the people who suffer poverty and hunger (rather than the middle-men) and it does actually seem to work. Here's an example from The Economist:
  http://www.economist.com/news/...
  "Now enough of these programmes are up and running to make a first assessment. Early results are encouraging: giving money away pulls people out of poverty, with or without conditions. Recipients of unconditional cash do not blow it on booze and brothels, as some feared. Households can absorb a surprising amount of cash and put it to good use. But conditional cash transfers still seem to work better when the poor face an array of problems beyond just a shortage of capital."
  (I remember another funny quote from someone but can't find it just now, along the lines "The common characteristic of the poor is they don't have money, and it turns out that by giving them money we can change that.")
15. Re:How sad by magarity · 2016-05-22 02:36 · Score: 1
  
  But an Olympics extravaganza is a microcosm of stimulus spending by government. All that money is not heaped in a pile and lit on fire, even the money used for the meteor shower the article is about. All that money goes towards jobs and construction. That throwing tax money into construction and related jobs turns out to be an inefficient, if not outright failed, way to stimulate prosperity should be no surprise to anyone except a Keynesian.
16. Re: How sad by thegarbz · 2016-05-22 02:41 · Score: 1
  
  The problem isn't building infrastructure providing it makes sense to do so. The problem is building infrastructure which has a sole purpose for supporting the games. There are just as many examples of good infrastructure upgrades as there are bad ones.
  My local university used the competitor housing and running track from former commonwealth games as a running track and dorm rooms for students.
  Austria finally built a subway station to their stadium for the FIFA world cup which served as a platform to continue the subway out to empty land and create a new mini city in the location.
  Infrastructure isn't a bad thing unless it goes unused or is unneeded. What happened in Greece was a disaster example of a single purpose build that pretty much hasn't been used since. In the meantime Sydney Olympic park is a bustling place of endless activity, and not just sporting activity.
17. Re: How sad by johnsmithperson123 · 2016-05-22 03:15 · Score: 1
  
  Building a volleyball stadium 10 minutes from the beach was a new low for Olympic excess.
18. Re:How sad by Antique+Geekmeister · 2016-05-22 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  > All that money goes towards jobs and construction.
  It does not. Much of the money goes to security, advertising, and the relentless "studies" that form such a large part of large scale projects. And much of the money is effectively stolen. Between contractors deliberately lowballing their bids and demanding unplanned budget increases to complete partial work, to human trafficking in workmen to do the actual hands-on construction, to the fraudulent ticketing practices of the 2002 Olympics, there is a large amount of theft and corruption in any large economic endeavor.
  The International Olympics Committee seems to do a reasonable job of reigning in such abuses and trying to be honest in their dealilngs, as do most cities' Olympic committees. But do not mistake "good" with perfect. And do not be suprised when money is spent by bureaucracies to ensure the presence of the bureaucracy itself.
19. Re:How sad by NicknameUnavailable · 2016-05-22 07:44 · Score: 1
  
  It saddens my heart to see the billions spent on these sporting events
  We need to keep the jocks amused until we crack genetic engineering - they're a gold mine of genomic data.
20. Re:How sad by DerekLyons · 2016-05-22 09:06 · Score: 1
  
  You can't just throw "money" at drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, and despair, and expect them to go away.
  Strangely enough, you can just throw money directly into the hands of the people who suffer poverty and hunger (rather than the middle-men) and it does actually seem to work.
  You're correct - it seems to work. And if I take painkillers, my back pain seems to go away. But in neither case do the actual causes go away - while handouts break the cycle of despair it replaces it with a cycle of dependency. Which is why decades of throwing money at the problems hasn't worked.
21. Re:How sad by dillee1 · 2016-05-22 14:05 · Score: 1
  
  I will try to help the grandparent explain why money alone won't solve the aforementioned.
  1) In 3rd world country the government is so corrupted, your donation/materials will just end up being profits of politicians/warlords. Africa is great example of this.
  In order for your money to get useful things done, you will need governance/overseeing power in a lot of local issue. And without military/police force you can't govern anything.
  TLDR, you need British colonial style ruling if you actually want to help those locals. Any meaningful changes will takes decades to happens also.
  2) Money itself is actually worthless, its the material it can purchase that is meaningful. In many case the problem is so big and requires so much material that no one in world can supply. To solve those issue you have to create the whole supply chain form scratch. Again it is governance/management issue.
22. Re:How sad by rtb61 · 2016-05-22 17:30 · Score: 1
  
  In which case money buys the required legal infrastructure to pursue and prosecute the corrupt. Unfortunately what is happening in those cases is money is buying the means of corruption and that money is being provided by western corporations who reap the lions or is that the vultures share of that corruption and this often backed by the corrupt western governments that are the source of those corrupt corporations. Do not expect western governments to solve the corruption that they facilitate at the behest of corrupt western corporations and they are doing it all over the world and oh look, surprise, surprise, surprise, they blame the victims.
  
  --
  Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
23. Re:How sad by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2016-05-22 17:47 · Score: 1
  
  What's a cycle of depndency actually mean to you? It seems meaningless to me.
  First, we're all dependent on on another (no man is an island, etc. etc.)
  Second, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that people stop working.
  Third, and most importantly, why is a cycle of dependency worse than the status quo?
  
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24. Re:How sad by Dunavant · 2016-05-23 05:12 · Score: 1
  
  You can just throw money at poverty and at least thereby improve the people's lot.
  The number of lottery winners that end up going bankrupt seems to be a strong counter-argument to this.
25. Re:How sad by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2016-05-23 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, he clearly meant a negative dependency. It's a very confusing statement. What's the dependency he's talking about? How would it come about?
  
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26. Re:How sad by DerekLyons · 2016-05-23 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  What's a cycle of depndency actually mean to you? It seems meaningless to me.
  Is English not your primary language, or are you just stupid? Words mean things, and if you don't understand what dependency means then use a dictionary.
  
  Second, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that people stop working.
  Had I claimed people stopped working, you'd have a point. But I didn't. So kindly reply to what I wrote rather than what you wish to pontificate about, or just go away.
  
  Third, and most importantly, why is a cycle of dependency worse than the status quo?
  Again, I didn't say it was. (You really need to work on your reading comprehension and learn the difference between your bias and assumptions and what people actually wrote.) I said it didn't fix the problems.
  If you want to fix the problem, the money is far better spent on education and providing opportunity (teaching them to fish) rather than strictly on handouts and support as we historically have done (just giving them fish).
27. Re:How sad by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2016-05-23 09:14 · Score: 1
  
  I asked what you meant by a vague term, and what you thought a "cycle of dependency" would look like. And how it might be created. I posited one such mechanism, but apparently that wasn't at all what you claimed.
  So, what do you mean?
  
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"Event" also has a scientific, post-facto meaning. by eyenot · 2016-05-21 20:14 · Score: 1

Earth could be headed for "hard times" in terms of incoming fragments, bolides, comets, and other giant dead space things, both solar and galactic. Why not open those panels of our social camera obscurae?
Even if these possible events are lifetimes away (which they may or may not be, not like anybody can say for absolutely sure -- hence why there are pleas for public funding to become better equipped to detect and to prevent collisions with near-Earth objects) this light show doesn't have to actually represent that eventuality in order to carry the same deeper, human meaning.
I'm sure there are many reasons why many people feel pre-apocalyptic stress disorder, what with everything going on in the news today. Something like this is bound to ring true with just about every generation that's managed to still be alive today. You could light the atmosphere on fire with numerous atomic warheads and there are dwindling numbers of people who would have any immediate qualms with it.
More power to 'em, whoever the fuck they are.

--
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Bad Moderation by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-21 21:33 · Score: 3, Informative

I made the above comment in good faith, as I did with a similar comment elsewhere in this thread. Both are at -1.
The effect of hosting the Olympics on Greek debt has been widely reported.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-08-02/how-the-2004-olympics-triggered-greeces-decline
http://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/a-dark-olympic-legacy-for-greece/news-story/8dcf6d1e8df9fe2e0f93ff12e74b1b72
Furthermore, there are economic studies in the US that show that public subsidies for sports venues aren't worth it.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/use-of-taxpayer-money-for-pro-sports-arenas-draws-fresh-scrutiny-1425856677
My comments are supported by plenty of research on these topics. There's no good reason why my posts were modded down. I'm not sure why I bother trying to make good posts if moderators are going to downmod them to -1 where most people won't see them. I can only assume I was modded down because someone disagreed with my posts, which is a blatant abuse of moderation.
1. Re:Bad Moderation by l0n3s0m3phr34k · 2016-05-21 22:36 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Stop posting as an AC, that would help tremendously.
2. Re:Bad Moderation by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-22 00:49 · Score: 1
  
  I post AC, and will forever, after /. and Jon Katz tried to take our postings here -- which supposedly WE own -- and use them to publish that book on the Hellmouth series.
  Aww, did you think we'd forget? Sorry, some of us remember, even between our hot grits sessions.
3. Re:Bad Moderation by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-05-22 01:44 · Score: 1
  
  If they had registered and posted, they would now be banned from posting. I registered here once and was banned by other users for making a few perfectly reasonable comments that they just happened to not agree with.
  How were you banned?
  
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4. Re:Bad Moderation by thegarbz · 2016-05-22 02:44 · Score: 1
  
  I will never register here as long as users can ban other users.
  Users can't and never have been able to do that. Even moderators don't ban obvious troll accounts.
5. Re:Bad Moderation by CrimsonAvenger · 2016-05-22 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting links.
  So, the $7B that Greece spent on the Olympics pushed their debt to $273B, which was a major cause of their current economic woes?
  From where I sit, I'd think the other $266B of debt was the real problem, not the (relative) pittance they spent on the Olympics.
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
6. Re:Bad Moderation by Antique+Geekmeister · 2016-05-22 05:47 · Score: 1
  
  They _expected_ to make back the money in increased business and tourism. They didn't So the difference was between an expectation of roughly $300 billion/year, and $250 billion per year. It's often the difference between expected income and costs, and real income and costs, that bankrupt a person or a nation.
7. Re:Bad Moderation by l0n3s0m3phr34k · 2016-05-22 15:56 · Score: 1
  
  Did you try the advice off the FAQ?
  
  Email banned@slashdot.org. Be sure to specify the IP itself, your user ID, and any other pertinent information. (If you're connecting through a proxy server, you might need to have the admin contact us instead.)
8. Re:Bad Moderation by l0n3s0m3phr34k · 2016-05-22 15:58 · Score: 1
  
  I agree. If their claim was true, all the accounts associated with the GNAA would have long been banner LOL
Dont worry by nukenerd · 2016-05-21 21:40 · Score: 1, Insightful

What could possibly go wrong?
1. Re:Dont worry by FormOfActionBanana · 2016-05-22 05:15 · Score: 1
  
  like we needed a reference to understand that tungsten at de-orbited energy would hurt?? And what exactly is funny about that?
  
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Bad Moderatiom by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-21 21:45 · Score: 3, Informative

Why is this post at -1? These are legitimate issues that have been raised by many people.
I'll again cite this article: http://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/a-dark-olympic-legacy-for-greece/news-story/8dcf6d1e8df9fe2e0f93ff12e74b1b72.
The article notes that Sydney fared much better with the costs of hosting the Summer Olympics because they had plans to continue using the venues they built, even after the Olympics were over. They brought in additional revenue which helped to offset the costs. The Olympic Stadium in 1996 was Turner Field in Atlanta. That stadium is now being replaced, but the Braves have played there for 20 years. That hasn't happened in Athens, where those venues were built at a similarly large price tag but have subsequently sat vacant.
In the case of the World Cup, Qatar is using migrant workers, who have awful working conditions, to build numerous stadiums in the desert for the 2022 World Cup. Many of these stadiums won't long term uses. It would have been far better to choose the primary competing bid from the United States, which has more than enough stadiums to host the World Cup. No additional venues would be built to host the World Cup in the US; we would use what we already have. It's a far less costly solution and one that produces far less waste and has much less environmental impact.
There's no good reason for the above post to be at -1. I can only assume it was modded down because someone disagreed. That's an abuse of moderation. Too often, posts that get modded down incorrectly don't get modded back up and people don't see them. Why bother making good comments when abusive moderators are going to mod them down?
1. Re:Bad Moderatiom by AK+Marc · 2016-05-21 22:36 · Score: 2
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... The US held it, only in existing stadiums. I saw a game in a stadium built in 1930. I can't say the games were held only in old stadiums, but I can say none were held in purpose built stadiums.
  
  Despite the complaints that the US wasn't a football country, that world cup had the highest attendance. It should have come back to the US before it went to Qatar or Brazil. But it needs to bring the economic "benefits" to the 3rd world, where it's economic penalty, not benefit.
  
  --
  Learn to love Alaska
2. Re: Bad Moderatiom by hackwrench · 2016-05-22 02:45 · Score: 1
  
  For every mention of why do something good when situation x results in that goodness being diminished, I answer "Because that is the sort of person I want to be."
3. Re:Bad Moderatiom by youngone · 2016-05-22 14:27 · Score: 1
  
  I don't disagree at all with your point about Greece, there's no doubt the Olympics sucked an awful lot of money out of Greece, but Sydney is not that much better.
  The main stadium was going to be a new, large venue for Rugby and Rugby League matches, but it's way too big, and looks awful on TV when it's a quarter full.
  The Sydney Swans AFL team was supposed to play some of their home matches there, but it turns out the stadium is so far away from the fans, that they just won't go, and so the Swans have ended their contract a year early.
  Sydney is going to be paying for their Olympics for a long time, just like everyone else who have been suckered into hosting it.
A fly in the ointment? by petes_PoV · 2016-05-21 22:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

--
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Re:Next year: North Korea by Hognoxious · 2016-05-21 23:01 · Score: 1

Yeah, I reckon the dear leader will totally love such a display of imperialist pig-dog aggression against the prosperous & peaceful people's republic.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:This is why the Olympics suck by Rei · 2016-05-22 00:50 · Score: 4, Interesting

One thing that bugs me about this summary:
At orbital velocity (LEO) an object has a potential energy of around 30MJ per kilogram, an energy density higher than ethanol. Black powder, by contrast (common in fireworks) has 1/10th that energy density. The various colours, with the exception of white, are generally from rather weakly combusting compounds. There's a lot more energy to be had for producing "glow" from the orbital energy rather than whatever they want to burn to produce a coloured glow. And the colour of the thermal radiation from reentry will depend on the surface temperature, and that's customizeable for red, orange, yellow, and white (no green, blue or purple, though) just through simple blackbody emission, customizeable if specific ions are being ablated that tend to radiate in certain bands. The blackbody colour can be varied over the course of reentry by changing the drag coefficient as the surface ablates.
Perhaps "combustion" is the wrong term, perhaps they're just talking about ablation?
Honestly, you don't need special pellets to make a neat fireworks display, rockets can do that themselves ;) In fact... hmm... now that I think about it, the most cost-efficient way to get strange atmospheric effects might be barium clouds. They only require sounding rockets, the glow comes from the below-horizon sun itself, they show effects of the solar wind on the atmosphere (sort of like artificial auroras), and are often mistaken for UFOs and can look like slow fireworks when they expand.

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Project Thor by Selur · 2016-05-22 01:39 · Score: 1

Project Thor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... got commercialized?
Where to aim them by penguinoid · 2016-05-22 02:04 · Score: 1

Artificial meteors? They can call me if they need help on where to aim them.

--
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Re: What a fucking waste of money! by slazzy · 2016-05-22 02:41 · Score: 1

Particularly if it's cloudy. Pun intended

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Meteor fireworks? by LynnwoodRooster · 2016-05-22 04:26 · Score: 1

After the Charlie Foxtrot that Brazil is going to be, I think just providing basic sanitation, clean water, and a reasonable crime rate would be plenty to offer...

--
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Re: What a fucking waste of money! by Rob+Bos · 2016-05-22 04:48 · Score: 1

If it's cloudy, they can probably just not do it.
Oh ya. by AndyKron · 2016-05-22 05:26 · Score: 1

Cool pellets, what do they do? They drop from space and burn. How much do they cost? Each pellet costs $8,100. Fuck those pellets!
great by SuperDre · 2016-05-22 20:28 · Score: 1

that's exactly what we need, more junk in the lower orbit in space.. Better just pocket the money and use it to try and suppress the polution over tokyo itself..
Didn't this happen before? by Nyghtfall · 2016-05-23 01:58 · Score: 1

Seems to me they had 2 large "meteor" like objects during the 40's that wiped out a couple towns. You would think they wouldn't want anything falling from the sky towards their towns town. What's next? Godzilla!
Re:This is why the Olympics suck by crunchygranola · 2016-05-23 09:19 · Score: 1

It is easy enough to Google-up the actual website of the company doing this, rather than rely on third-hand journalist summaries. They describe in reasonable detail how their scheme works.
They are using pellets containing different elements to produce different colors as the pellets vaporize and ionize on re-entry. They do refer to the pellets "burning up" (just as we do for meteors), but never combustion.

--
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age