Add $1.5M and a lost opportunity to the cost of the republican shutdown

[ffr]

Trevor Paglen’s Orbital Reflector, the World’s First Art Satellite, Is Lost in Space

Following the successful launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on December 3, a 100-foot-long, diamond shaped balloon that was being carried by one of the rocket’s sixty-four satellites was supposed to deploy and inflate at a distance of about 350 miles from Earth. However, due to the United States’ record-long government shutdown and a complication with the satellite’s position, the Reno-based museum lost communication with Orbital Reflector. - Artform.com

Thanks Dump!

The institution needed approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to release the kinetic sculpture. Because of the large number of satellites on the rocket, the FCC was unable to give the green light for deployment until it drifted away from the others and it was hindered in its monitoring of Orbital Reflector by the government shutdown. Officials were not able to contact the museum about the status of the project until President Trump reopened the government on January 25.

If the balloon had been able to inflate, it would have been able to reflect sunlight back to earth. According to the museum, it would have appeared as a “fast moving ‘star’” before it disintegrated several weeks later, after it re-entered earth’s atmosphere.

[cstanleytech]

1. To be honest I cannot cry over it as the last thing we need is encouragement

to organizations and or companies to put up more senseless junk.
After all imagine a giant McDonalds or Walmart sign glowing in the sky over North America.