From: "UTADNX::UTDSSA::GREER"@utspan.span.nasa.gov
Subject: Vandalizing the sky
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Lines: 32

In Space Digest V16 #487,
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
