Japanese startup launches satellite to deliver artificial meteor ligthtshows

[gary]

A story from the "If they got rid of all that light pollution maybe they wouldn't need this department" :lol:

Miwa Suzuki reports yesterday at phys.org (https://phys.org/news/2019-01-japan-satellite-blasts-space-artificial.html) that a micro-satellite developed
by a Tokyo startup, which is designed to deploy an artificial meteor
shower light-show, was launched as part of the payload of a Epsilon-4 rocket
from the Uchinoura space centre by the Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency (JAXA) on Friday morning.





Story here :-
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-japan-satellite-blasts-space-artificial.html

[JeniSkunk]

Normally I don't like to hope for space or technology projects to fail catastrophically.
This one, however, I hope suffers a rocket detonation failure on the pad.
There's already too much junk in orbit causing micro-meteorites. We don't need to put more garbage up there specifically to launch meteorites to earth on schedule.

[Wavytone]

Next it will be artificial comets - so they can see something go "whoosh" across the sky - every night - as most of the public have ben led to expect by the media.

[pmrid]

But WHY??? What possible benefit could a constant supply of meteors have? And the massive hubris is a mind-blower - a company that believes it has the right to cover the whole world with meteor showers. I, too, hope for it's failure.

Peter

[mental4astro]

In a country (Japan, China, Korea) where most people have never seen the night sky filled with stars, little lone a meteor, or for heaven's sake a comet, astronomy has a totally different meaning to them. It is a curiosity, and treated as being almost mystical, only for those in Universities and NASA, and way beyond the grasp of the everyday person. Most people have not even looked through a telescope either, and forget any sort of tangible comprehension of the Earth's place in the solar system.

Understand this, and you come to see why such a Start Up has caught so much traction.

When a lot, if not most, of the bureaucrats also fall into this broad population situation, it makes it difficult for legislators to make sense of this proposal and its impact. The "closely guarded secret" of the 11 herbs and spices cocktail of chemicals used for the light show, it makes a mockery of EPA safeguards too.

Even here in Australia, despite the great sky we still have, most people still view astro with some degree of trepidation, even suspicion. Heck, I've come very close to being assaulted by a bloke who thought I was yanking his chain with the view of Saturn through my C5 (and an SCT IS NOT what most people know of as a telescope), and had the bloody Spooks called on me on another ocassion. The media also does a poor job of things too through their shear ignorance. They are also playing up to the "sensation" that is this artifical meteor shower, even here in Oz - I'm finding ads about this "news story" pop up on various apps.

We as an astro fraturnity, with access to a fantastic night sky and having experience of things astro, we can be easily outraged by this artificial meteor shower. In a way it is WE who are out of touch with the general public in this case. If you look at this from the point of view of the general public, you can see why this has so much appeal. And very likely, if we don't chose our words carefully in voicing opposition, we stand to come across as being "precocious nerds".

[mental4astro]

There's a couple of opportunities I see with this:

1, show how we have stuffed our skies with light and particulate pollution that we need to resort to artificial meteors...

2, show how we rather not change our ways by reducing pollution of all forms, and resort to these artificial meteors as a symptom of our refusal to change.

And forget the rubbish that the chemical cocktail contains for the lightshow. WE get to see a meteor! :cool: :question:

[AndyG]

With my extended family fitting this description perfectly, I'd 2nd this notion. Epic light pollution, coupled with consistent cloud cover, limits Astro to a diehard few.

Everyone who had a peek through my little 102 Mak last year in Japan was blown away, yet I was thoroughly underwhelmed.

Honestly, it surprises me how the Japanese achieve so much with Astro product quality, and various space exploration successes. The everyday inspiration from the sky just isn't there.

[gary]

A small Australian company I worked for in the 80's and 90's had some
large multinational Japanese corporate customers.

It was a wonderful opportunity to work alongside and make friends with
fellow engineers in Japan.

On one occasion when a visiting Japanese software engineer was in Sydney,
I invited him to come on a sightseeing drive on a Sunday up to the Central
Coast.

We made a full day of it and toured the beaches and the national parks
including lunch and a sumptuous seafood dinner in the evening.

When we made our way back down the freeway that night, I was
startled when my guest started to make long, alarming gurgling noises.

"Argggggggh. Awwwwwwww. Arrggggggh".

My initial thought was, "My God. Is he having a seizure? Maybe he is
allergic to the lobster and prawns we just ate".

With one hand on the wheel, I turned on the interior light so I could
ascertain his state.

He was pitched forward in the passenger seat toward the windshield,
his fingers gripping the top of the console and his eyes had rolled up.

"Arggggggggh. Awwwwwwww".

He wasn't ill at all. Instead his face was full of astonished wonderment.

I then quickly glanced up out the windshield. It was a beautiful clear
night and as the freeway is unlit and as we were away from populated areas,
it afforded a fabulous view of the stars.

"Beautiful!"

I was immensely relieved that he was simply looking at the stars and
it then occurred to me that it was probably the first time in his life he had
seen them with minimal light pollution.

His gasps of joy at really seeing them for the first time were palpable
and it is something I have never forgotten.

It ended a perfect day out.

[pmrid]

It's all very well to have some empathy for our star-starved northern chums. But there is a large leap from there to taking upon themselves the right to inflict their vision of starry-starry night on the rest of the world. I called it hubris and don't retreat from it.

Peter

[gary]

Hi Peter,

Based on the press release, thankfully I don't think this company is
about to start deploying the artificial meteor shower globally willy-nilly. :)

Obviously deploying any payload into orbit is an expensive exercise
and as stated by them, the satellite only has a finite number of 'balls'
it can deploy.

Instead, the impression I get is that they will be deploying them
'on-demand' to paying customers as an entertainment.

They have not disclosed pricing but one gathers that a deployment would
not be cheap.

Beyond this first gig at Hiroshima, they may not find a paying
customer.

Just as cities such as the city of Sydney employ private companies to
put on public fireworks displays such as New Year's eve, I gather
they would be seeking similar paid-for commissions.

The City of Sydney paid some $5.78 million for 8.5 tonnes of
pyrotechnics with an estimated attendance of 1.6 million
and obviously many millions more watching on television.

So I would imagine that it is the type of entertainment market
this company is trying to muscle into.

Few families at Sydney Harbour would have questioned what the
chemical and metallic micro-particle make-up of the smoke
they would have been breathing in.

Some people would have chosen not to attend for a variety of reasons
or questioned whether it was rate payers money best spent.

But there is no denying these sorts of displays have been popular
since the 9th-century when the Chinese invented fireworks.

Corporate web site :-
http://star-ale.com/en/

[mental4astro]

Hubris or not, you need to understand why these people are doing this in order to offer a solution. Thumping a fist on the table and just calling names helps no one. You see hubris, I see an opportunity. Of course I see nothing good in this Start Up - it's a symptom of how wrong we have our priorities. We tell our kids to look after the environment, and then we turn around and do this... So, an opportunity exists to help turn the tide for own good. Or all our grandkids will only ever see artificial meteors.

So, we have two choices here from our position on this forum: get all outraged and demonize, or use this energy in a proactive manner. The Start Up sees an opportunity to make a buck. Is that all you see?

[JeniSkunk]

Lets see, China wants to put artificial moons into orbit for night illumination (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=170846), Russia wants to put ads into low earth orbit (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=172789), and now this garbage, on top of the light pollution we're already having to deal with.
It honestly makes me wonder if people DON'T want the night sky to be able to be seen.

[AndyG]

I think Alex has the right idea. Commercial spaceflight is only barely beyond infancy, somewhat like a toddler.

What did we toddlers do when we got our first crayons? Did you draw neatly in a scrapbook? No, we probably drew all over the walls... Why? Because we could.

There will be to-ing and fro-ing between various powers before this settles down. Somewhere in a boardroom, is some marketing type who think's he/she have brought on the next big thing. We think otherwise.

As Alex pointed out, it's an opportunity to draw attention to bigger things. The welfare of a few astro nerds probably ranks 18,000th on the public list, between blue budgie fanciers, and Nepalese stamp collectors.

If we can draw attention to it in ways that rank higher, our ends may still be met by proxy.