I'm trying to rage-write an article about all the completely awful, useless, polluting, dangerous shit that companies are proposing to launch into orbit and I can't even tell what's fake and what's real on these fucking techbro websites anymore.
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Or this shit: https://spacedaily.com/sd-n-nasa-backs-interlunes-2028-bid-to-mine-helium-3-from-the-moon/
The Moon's gravity is much weaker than Earth's so it'll be easy to accidentally launch rocks into Moon-escape orbits, making the Earth-Moon trip even more hazardous than it is already. Fun!
@sundogplanets As an environmentalist and hobbyist astronomer, I’m truly baffled by the attitude those companies seem to harbor toward space pollution. It’s just not a concern for them *at all*.
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@sundogplanets The FCC's mandate and expertise is in protecting communications, ensuring satellites don't interfere with each other, etc. They have much less expertise in protecting from externalities like the night sky, etc, and it now shows.
@sundogplanets Like, if you asked most people "what is the primary agency that regulates launching things into orbit", almost no one (who doesn't already know) would guess "the FCC".
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Or this shit: https://www.cnn.com/science/space-forge-factory-semiconductors-spc
I guess factories in orbit are already a thing? Tiny factories, for now. Which then have to drop their precious cargo back through the atmosphere somehow and recover it? How does this make any sense economically at all?
@sundogplanets Theoretically, at least, microgravity might allow the production of materials that can’t be made in 1G. I’m pretty sure some small-scale feasibility studies have been done but can’t recall any smashing successes. Your point about the economics is dead-on. The material produced is going to have to be incredibly valuable in its application to be worth it. And yes, it’s a 1970s-80s scifi staple.
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I want to see companies that promise to use a handful of well-tested, ethically built, perfectly functioning satellites with decades-long operating lifetimes to do something that benefits the vast majority of humanity. Why can't we have more proposals like that?
@sundogplanets Planned obsolescence is rarely not a moneymaker for the planners, and up there was low-earth orbit, minding its own business, not making adolescent-minded billionaires into adolescent-minded trillionaires.
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Like this shit: https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/27/meta-inks-deal-for-solar-power-at-night-beamed-from-space/
Don't worry guys, the CEO says you can stare right into the infrared beam and it's totally safe! I trust him, don't you?
(How you transmit usable amounts of power with a beam that's so diffuse that you can look at it I have no fucking idea.)
@sundogplanets Somebody was doing coke while reading Gerard O’Neill’s HIGH FRONTIER.
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Or THIS shit which is really shit: https://harvardtechnologyreview.com/2025/09/05/the-future-of-energy-unlocking-the-potential-of-space-based-solar-power/
Many companies are looking at different ways to do this (like the stare-into-the-IR-beam company above). All of them have huge safety, tech, and/or feasibility issues.
I would love to see the business case for something like that. Especially given that we can generate solar electricity so easily right here on the ground.
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Checking; that grant to Interlune is for a system to measure volatile gases in lunar regolith in situ?
Nothing about mining the Moon for helium-3.
The media coverage remains appalling.
@michael_w_busch @sundogplanets I was going to asked who cracked fusion, which would be the only reason to mine helium-3.
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@Unsightly3055 I saw that one and decided it's a joke. It's not a joke????
@sundogplanets @Unsightly3055 no, it's not a joke. JAXA had been working on orbital power since the 80's.
Research on the Space Solar Power Systems (SSPS)｜JAXA｜Research and Development Directorate
JAXA研究開発部門は、JAXAの事業戦略に基づき、国家課題解決や国際競争力向上に向けたシステムの能力や価値を高める技術の研究開発を重点的に実施し、併せてプロジェクトの確実な実施の為、基礎的研究の推進および基盤的技術研究の維持、向上を図っています。また、国立研究開発法人で求められる「研究開発成果の最大化」の為、宇宙以外の分野の技術と連携し、国民に資するイノベーション創出を目指します。
(www.kenkai.jaxa.jp)
The Japanese OHISAMA will launch in 2026. It'll use microwaves to transport energy.
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16293144Caltech MAPLE had their microwave model tested a few years ago.
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/in-a-first-caltechs-space-solar-power-demonstrator-wirelessly-transmits-power-in-space -
Checking; that grant to Interlune is for a system to measure volatile gases in lunar regolith in situ?
Nothing about mining the Moon for helium-3.
The media coverage remains appalling.
@michael_w_busch @sundogplanets
Also ignoring the fact that there is literally no functional market for He3 as a fuel and will not be until a fusion reactor exists that can burn it which there won’t be because no one is working on that because the temperatures required are way too high. Could it work? Maybe, but it’s decades further away than DT or DD fusion.
Anyone dangling the ‘He3 lunar regolith mining’ idea is a huckster looking to part the gullible from their money.
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I would love to see the business case for something like that. Especially given that we can generate solar electricity so easily right here on the ground.
@sleepy62 @sundogplanets for starters the business case is on the moon and Mars. Also it enables solar power during night too.
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Oh. This is orbital enshittification.
Shit.
@sundogplanets In the 2010s everybody got a social media account and now there are no more offline humans to focus your onboarding efforts on. These funds have existed for 30 years by growing cloud services. But now it's just the inert bottom of the ocean where there is no more whale carcass left.
So they try to keep the lights on by absorbing whole large infrastructure sectors. It's not that they have anything useful to offer space. It's that space has government money that is useful to them.
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@sleepy62 @sundogplanets for starters the business case is on the moon and Mars. Also it enables solar power during night too.
We already have have solar power at night in the form of storage and grid interconnections.
My point is it is almost certainly going to be cheaper to build out storage and/or high voltage grid interconnect between sunny and not sunny places than it is to build anything remotely financially viable in space.
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We already have have solar power at night in the form of storage and grid interconnections.
My point is it is almost certainly going to be cheaper to build out storage and/or high voltage grid interconnect between sunny and not sunny places than it is to build anything remotely financially viable in space.
@sleepy62 @sundogplanets there's also a limit on how much solar power can exist on country like Japan without risking local food production.
In addition out of control climate change might put terrestrial solar plants in risk due to worsening storms and increasing hailstorms.
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I want to see companies that promise to use a handful of well-tested, ethically built, perfectly functioning satellites with decades-long operating lifetimes to do something that benefits the vast majority of humanity. Why can't we have more proposals like that?
@sundogplanets <gestures at Hughes Communications>
<gestures at DirecTV>
<gestures at the vultures at SkyTerra>
<gestures at EchoStar> -
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