vandalizing the sky in space digest v hathaway stsci edu writes about the protests over proposals to put a giant billboard into orbit i d like to add that some of the protests do not come from a strictly practical consideration of what pollution levels are acceptable for research activities by professional astronomers some of what i would complain about is rooted in aesthetics regards wm hathaway baltimore md mr hathaway s post is right on the money if a little lengthy in short an orbiting billboard would be trash in the same way that a billboard on the earth is trash billboards make a place look trashy that is why there are laws in many places prohibiting their use the light pollution complaints are mainly an attempt to find some tangible reason to be against orbiting billboards because people don t feel morally justified to complain on the grounds that these things would defile the beauty of the sky regular orbiting spacecraft are not the same in this respect since they are more like abstract entities but a billboard in space would be like a beer can somebody had thrown on the side of the road just trash dale m greer whose opinions are not to be confused with those of the center for space sciences university of texas at dallas utspan utadnx utdssa greer or greer utdcss utdallas edu let machines multiply doing the work of many but let the people have no use for them lao tzu
