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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@ngaylinn @sundogplanets I miss the good old times where just they were playing with their NFTs.
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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 Genuinely that’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.
Someday I hope we see serious studies on how having absurd amounts of wealth and influence literally destroys people’s brains.
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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 I'm disappointed that one of the "all satellites everywhere all the time" companies hasn't just thrown a bunch of cheap-ish telescopes into orbit and opened them up to you lot.
But then Elon did promise to end world hunger and when the quote arrived he went very quiet and never paid up. It was only ~$6B IIRC, which even at the time was less than 5% of his wealth.
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@sundogplanets The same energy there as the 'glyphosate is as safe as salt' myth that was perpetuated by Monsanto during the rollout of RoundUp
@camless @sundogplanets Cigarettes are good for pregnant women! It helps keep them calm, and soothes the throat!
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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 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.
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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. It's all so fucking ludicrous.
@sundogplanets it seems like all these space ventures live in the same no-man's-land occupied by stuff like Elon Musk's hyperloop or his brain-chip ambitions: it's hard to tell the degree to which they actually hope to achieve anything substantial vs. have some sort of grand tentpole projects always going, pretexts for hoovering up investment dollars
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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
thanks to voice all this out, this topic should raise much more voices and struggles about it. There's so much to do with all the mess being done in this world. Why are we letting multi-billionnaires ruin all our planet and its surroundings and still doing more profit out of pure speculation and debt on our own shoulders?? It's really outrageous that they do it in first hands but why are we so powerless to stop them? Omg, it's so fucked up. -
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?
Oh. This is orbital enshittification.
Shit.
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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 because cheap crap faster and faster has been the latest craze since the 70's.
- Clothes are crap and don't last for years.
- Kitchen blades are crap, if nothing else the plastic handles or the planned obsolescence side paint starts to crack.
- Home appliances don't last for 20 years and don't have 10 year warranty by default.The list goes on and on.
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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.
