Solar Reflections from Orbits to a Worlds Dark Spots

Void · 2025-10-28 20:27:00

This gal really is a negative Nellie. But I respect that, these questions need asking and answering. But she should not be judging absolutely prior to discussion.

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … &FORM=VIRE Quote:

Startup Raised Tens of Millions of Dollars for Giant Mirrors in Space for Light on Demand
YouTube
Gabriel Torch
107 views

Who owns space? Not you. You also do not own me or what I might want to do. But we do have to establish common methods of living.

https://www.space.com/space-exploration … tastrophic
Quote:

This company's plan to launch 4,000 massive space mirrors has scientists alarmed: 'From an astronomical perspective, that's pretty catastrophic'
News
By Tereza Pultarova published October 21, 2025
Reflect Orbital says their light-on-demand idea has generated significant interest from commercial and government customers.

Quote:

Reflect Orbital
Reflect Orbital, a California-based startup, has raised tens of millions of dollars for its ambitious plan to launch a constellation of 4,000 giant mirrors in space. The company aims to create "light on demand" by reflecting sunlight back to Earth after dark, potentially extending daytime hours for energy production, agriculture, and urban life. The startup has secured significant funding, including a $1.25 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from the U.S. Air Force, and has filed for a government license to launch its first satellite, EARENDIL-1, in April 2026. However, the project has raised significant concerns among astronomers and environmental advocates due to the potential impact on light pollution and the disruption of natural night sky observations.
Space.com
+5

Here is the company, Reflect Orbital: https://www.reflectorbital.com/
Quote:

Sunlight on demand
Reflect Orbital is delivering sunlight by building a constellation of in-space mirror

Instead of worrying about her sleep at night lets say it can start by being in places where it is more welcome. Such as places with fine soil but short growing seasons. If you could convert a growing season of 70 days to 90 days in a valley in Alaska, Yukon, or Siberia for instance.

They deal with the midnight sun keeping them awake in the summer anyway so they might think it is OK. But that would be only a few days a year.

What about solar panels in deserts? If you have a huge installation and few people, then you could use the mirrors for that.

What about the South Pacific where nutrient deserts exist. Floating solar power plants could pump nutrients up to stimulate the growth of algae and fish. This could be considered a Carbon Sink in part, because some of that organics would sink to the bottom of the sea to be sequestered for a long time.

What about at sea upwind from a desert, to cause rain in the desert?

I accept that that gal has the right to ask questions, but our existence depends on gifts from the universe always. This is no different.

And now what about Luna, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Etc. A mirror that did not reflect UV, (If possible) could make life possible on these worlds in there dark spots. Venus, Mars? For Venus, cloud cities that stay on the dark side of the planet. For Mars Heat Oasis situations in the dead of a winter situation.

What about solar powered spaceships?

As for Space Junk, that is going to be cleaned up.

Also these mirrors are not likely to be put in LEO. They would be oculted by the Earth almost half of the time if they were.

And above LEO, the space junk problem is not nearly as much a problem.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-10-28 20:48:48)

Void · 2025-10-29 10:03:16

OK, let's have a look at this:

I am going to imagine targeting multiple locations on the planet.

Greenland: https://www.bing.com/maps/search?FORM=H … .3&style=r

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view … t=0&sim=11
Image Quote:

Many places in the North and also Chile have Fjord: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjord

Greenland and some other places have Fjords and ice caps. Mirrors from orbit could help keep a Fjord open year around, and also support an OTEC-Like operation for power and fresh water. Evaporation may be expected to fall as more snow to the ice cap in many cases depending on winds, I suppose. Plankton will be stimulated as well.

By lifting water vapor to the ice caps the ocean levels are reduced. (But of course you do not want to stimulate the melting of flowing glaciers.

This might also be done to refresh glaciers in mountains also, and even if we become desperate this could be done in Antarctica.

We can also suppose that some of the organic activity will deposit into deep cold water with the brine, and will be sequestered for thousands of years, reducing CO2 in the atmosphere.

Arctic Ocean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean
Image Quote: Map_of_the_Arctic_region_showing_the_Northeast_Passage%2C_the_Northern_Sea_Route_and_Northwest_Passage%2C_and_bathymetry.png

In the spring and fall, these mirrors might be diverted to protect crops from untimely frosts.

New glaciers could probably be forced into existence with this process. Glaciers can cease to exist due to melting or from insufficient snowfall.

So Glaciers might be enhanced or created with this method.

And this might be important for the western coastal mountain glaciers of the America's.

OTEC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_the … conversion

https://ar.inspiredpencil.com/pictures- … ergy-plant
Image Quote: Global-map-of-OTEC-activities-and-resource-in-terms-of-the-temperature-difference-between.png

Where OTEC was already anticipated, light from mirrors might warm the water even more than it naturally is.

I do have sympathy for major observatories. They have to be considered.

And we should be making more telescopes in space and perhaps on the Moon.

The Mirrors may help pay for those telescopes or at least stimulate the rockets that can do both mirrors and telescopes.

Working with America's Greate Basin?

https://legacy.climas.arizona.edu/blog/ … agers.html

Image Quote: https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.8d5aaee8022 … ImgRaw&r=0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin
Image Quote:

Causing increased evaporation off the coast of California, mostly could lead to more snowfal into the inland mountains. Then the snow melted may in part be sent into the Great Basin.

My recollections are that once water gets into the Great Basin it falls as precipitation about 7 times before departing.

If lakes form inside of the Basin and are salty, they might be evaporated by mirror light, so that water will move as vapor inland even more.
Of course you could have solar panels on top of water as well, to help maintain inland lakes, and to collect power.

This would to some degree reduce the ocean levels.

Ending Penging

Last edited by Void (2025-10-29 10:48:06)

Void · Yesterday 03:25:11

Mirrors might be used in space propulsions, and of course to make spots on the Moon more supportive of human efforts. I will probably return to those later.

I think for Mars of course they could be very important. Many spots of Mars may be economically preferred, but with Mirrors, I think the polar ice caps and the surrounded terrain will be attractive.

It is possible that the North Ice Cap would be the earlier target, as during global dust storms, it may be a source of cold while Hellas would be a source of heat to start up the global dust storm. Not sure of that but it is a maybe.

Active solar robots which could poise on the polar surfaces, could receive both normal summer sunlight and winter time light projected from orbital mirrors. Masses of ice represent situations where the harvesting of water will also provide a sort of shelter from some of the harsh features of Mars, such as radiation and thermal variations.

Rather than melting the ice cap from the top down, you would make it into a Swiss cheese of tunnels in the ices. Tunnels and vaults maintained at perhaps -10 to -20 degrees C would make the tunnels suitable to certain types of robots and of some use to humans as well.

Using heat pumps, a minority of space could be kept warm for human comfort.

It is possible that orbital mirrors could be in part built from materials of Phobos and Deimos.

The input of sunlight to the north ice cap in winter from mirrors may reduce the power of the engine that runs global dust storms.

The Solar Robots on the polar surfaces would likely be vertical and perhaps light orienting and may have legs or robot assistant that can help reposition them.

Methane and Oxygen could be manufactured in massive amounts and shipped by pipelines all around the planet, making it more habitable. Methane leaks will help in warming the planet. At any location with energy CO2 could be split to yield Oxygen and Methane piped in could be reacted with the Oxygen to produce water.

Later the South Polar Ice Cap might be treated in a similar manner.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (Yesterday 03:39:04)

Void · Yesterday 10:56:47

Because NASA has been focused on finding alien life, perhaps we do not know as much about other aspects of Mas such as Phobos and Deimos. I am not complaining. We do have some information after all. But we really cannot get as final for plans of how to settle Mars/Phobos/Deimos as might be desired. We can speculate on options at this point, supposing various possible actual conditions.

There are several other topics that could have materials that can become tributary to this topic:

Index» Terraformation» Robot Worlds:
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=11221

Index» Terraformation» Rubble Pile Sinter/Glass Jar:
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 30#p234730

Index» Science, Technology, and Astronomy» Asteroid/off-Earth mining:
Calliban has a good post: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 26#p235126
VOID interferes: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 36#p235136

As I see it, unless Phobos and Deimos have the materials, to get lots of stuff, we might want to follow Callibans advice.
Of course I will modify it.

Unless we want to go to the trouble of accessing major icy asteroids at about 3.0 AU, going after "Crumb" asteroids might be a good way to go.

I would modify the capture device from a bag to a cone shaped canister. The reason for this would be that as your system "Digested" asteroid crumbs, periodically it could expand it's size.

The cone would not be intended to hold high air pressures, but to work with low air pressures.

Like a sea creature in a shell, it would expand the perimeter of the cone and the Base Door, as materials became available from previously processed bits of asteroid.

I am hoping that a gyrotron such as may be used to drill hydrothermal wells can turn the materials into dust. This may release volatile substances as gasses. Water vapor is hoped for, and this may reduce Iron in the materials if Hydrogen were repeatedly added to the Gyrotron beam.

Even though the pressures within may be rather low, the seal on the "Base Door" will matter, I expect and will be a problem to solve.

As far as collecting the released volatiles perhaps a cold trap will do. Water collected would be split into Hydrogen and Oxygen and then the Hydrogen added back to the Gyrotron Beam.

Dust collected could be magnetically separated to yield a high and low Iron content.

Methods of propulsion would be desired. I presume an electric power supply to be present that is not shown in the cone drawing.

One method of propulsion I am hoping to try for would have LOX pushed though the pores of a ceramic 'Nozzle" and a laser beam to convert the LOX into a hot gas. The hope is to not erode the Ceramic Nozzle too fast.

Alternately Oxygen could be made into frozen pellets and ejected by Mass Driver, to give thrust.

Alternately if good enough Iron were available, it could be used in either a Neumann Driver or MagDrive propulsion system.

Alternately magnetic dust could be ejected using an on-board mass driver.

I do not favor bringing the processed materials exclusively to Earth/Moon, but to supply refilling stations in solar orbits that spacecraft can visit.

In "Robot Worlds" I have this illustration: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 47#p235047
Image Quote:

Here I show 3 concentric orbits between Earth and Mars:

My presumption is that most traffic by tonnage will be solar electric in nature. So, having refill stations in circular solar orbits will make sense. The harvesting of materials from small asteroids most proximate to one of these orbits may make sense.

If this method is developed it could then be extended into the Asteroid belt which apparently has many small asteroids, only now detected.
https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/aster … roid-belt/
Quote:

3 min read
NASA’s Webb Reveals Smallest Asteroids Yet Found in Main Asteroid Belt

Quote:

“We now understand more about how small objects in the asteroid belt are formed and how many there could be,” said Tom Greene, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and co-author on the paper presenting the results. “Asteroids this size likely formed from collisions between larger ones in the main belt and are likely to drift towards the vicinity of Earth and the Sun.”

So, a continuous replenishment, may be occuring.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (Yesterday 11:43:45)

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Solar Reflections from Orbits to a Worlds Dark Spots

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Re: Solar Reflections from Orbits to a Worlds Dark Spots

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Re: Solar Reflections from Orbits to a Worlds Dark Spots

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