Coil:afe66: I'm in the anti camp.
Seems a bit unnecessary and bit of a gimmick. (like Musk putting his Tesla on top of the heavy rocket next month)
The international space station is visible to the naked eye and there are websites which tell you the transit times based on your location.
A large space station with permanent crew of people is much more interesting to me than a glowing dot.
So would you rather they put something else in there?
Genuinely curious as to why people are anti? What if the carbon fibre ball was a matte colour and not reflective and they just called it a "test payload that will deorbit in 90 days"? Just because it reflects light does it really make it something to be against?
In the modern world it seems harder to get away from man's changes. That's why many people go on holiday to see nature or unchanged environment. It's why people come to nz, see the unspoiled Bush etc.
I'm not bothered that they want to put an object in space, collect data and learn from it, I just think making it bright so everyone can see it, google it and go to the company website is unnecessary.
If it's a pr success then the next rocket company somewhere else the the world will do the same and maybe they want more pr coverage do they make it "bigger", "brighter" "longer".
We can't stop other countries from doing it if they want but do we, who often crow about how pure we are, want to be in the vanguard of this sort of thing.
Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should.
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