vandalizing the sky wm hathaway comments 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 many readers may never have known a time where the heavens were pristine sacred unsullied by the actions of humans the space between the stars as profoundly black as an abyss can be with full horizons and a pure sky one could look out upon half of all creation at a time none of which had any connection with the petty matters of man any lights were supplied solely by nature uncorruptable by men whole religions were based on mortal man somehow getting up there and becoming immortal as the stars whether by apotheosis or a belief in an afterlife the space age changed all that more on man s effect on the environment but there is still this desire to see a place that man hasn t fouled in some way i think my point about a desire for beauty is valid even if it can t ever be perfectly achieved i agree that the desire for beauty is valid but i think your desire to impose your vision of beauty is not you mention the age old desire to somehow get up there but ignore the beauty of the actual achievment of that vision you mention the beauty of a very dark sky not impeded by the effects of humans but ignore the beauty of the as dark as can be sky that is only visible from space a vision that we or at least our descendents may one day be able to see in part because of efforts that others call ugly one day i hope humans will be able to look out not upon half the heavens with only nature creted lights but upon all of the heavens with no lights if advertising in space can help us reach that goal it is no less beautiful for the way we reach it than the pristine sky of yesteryear or yester century which is totally unreachable one of the original conceptions of beauty in wetsern sculpture was a human form in the effort of striving to reach a goal i don t think there s any reason to believe that modernity has changed that just because it has changed the way we strive btw there are places that people haven t fouled sometimes they make it better tommy mac tom mcwilliams wk as the radius of vision increases tm ibm cl msu edu hm the circumference of mystery grows
