I don’t think this idea will see the light of day.
They can stick that mirror where the sun don’t shine.
Imagine a malicious person constantly aiming the light at at the house of someone they don’t like. Good thing it doesn’t seem to be feasible any time soon.
“I want a spot, but I want all of my sunlight focused onto a spot about a centimeter across. I’ll give you the coordinates.”
Because the sun is not a point source but a disk half a degree across, you can’t focus the sun tighter than about a 1km spot from a mirror in low earth orbit.
Welp I hate to break it to you, but the Ruskies actually already tried this one back in the 90s, and I’m fairly certain the business idea is based directly on that concept.
In a tent would be even worse.
commoditize sunlight
Absolute ghouls
So if they over concentrate does this turn into an ‘ant in a magnifying glass’ situation?
Could it be used to break up protests?
If by “break up” you mean on a molecular level, then yes.
Isn’t light pollution like that just illegal?
Edit: In the US, it is in some states, though not all. Haven’t found a source for Europe yet.
https://www.ncsl.org/environment-and-natural-resources/states-shut-out-light-pollution
FFS, we don’t need more sun hitting our planet right now, we need less. Much less. Have the mirror reflect sunlight away from the planet. Then it’d be useful
if someone stares directly at it will it hurt their eye?
