A Skier's Note To the Satellites

Parking in the underground garage at the base of the ski area, my dirty 2011 Subaru Impreza’s clock reads 4:45 a.m.

I’m bleary-eyed but something resembling prepared. My skis come out of the roof box with skins already affixed, and my ski boots have already been on for a half-hour, walk mode engaged, so I could drive with them on. I march to the base of the mountain, and as is the usual this winter, I’m greeted with an unusually warm morning and a cadre of snowcats, crisscrossing the resort, busy grooming its runs for paying customers set to begin lining up in three hours’ time when the lifts open.

But I’m here to ascend under my own power. I place my skis on the snow, and with a headlamp on, fiddle my boots into my two-pin touring bindings. I then darken my torch, and am welcomed with the reason I stumble to this place three days a week after just six hours of sleep.

The stars.

Ascending the ski area in the fatherly fashion I do; partly for dutiful exercise, maybe a teensy bit for fun (type II, that is), and hours before the sun rises so I can be home before my children awake, all mark a rare and reflective moment to myself.

But over time, I have been subject to forced companionship on these early morning sojourns.

It’s in the sky; that beautiful planetarium of stars, planets, and dust that seems clearest in the darkness before dawn, especially on a quiet, shuttered ski area climbed with skin and ski.

In that wonderful setting, I am bombarded more than ever by satellites; the constant shimmer of artificial bodies as they glide across the otherwise cold and crystalline sky. One after another, these unwelcome hangers-on not only distract from the stars themselves, they stand as reminders of SpaceX’s hegemony, or the inflated egos of space age CEO’s, intruding on my most meaningful solitude. It’s little help that Dave Matthews’ "Satellite," an anthem of my 1990’s childhood, remains one of my favorite DMB live treats. In their physical form, these sentinels are cumbersome and unwelcome, especially in such numbers.

But I can still see the stars, or the waxing and waning of our one moon as it dances close to the ecliptic, all before the brilliance of sunrise.

But an even more burdensome brightness may yet take even the stars away from our night, and shine out the celestial bodies that for eons have left our ancestors and us in awe.

That’s because Reflect Orbital, a tech start-up out of the banal and light-polluted Hawthorne, CA, is seeking FCC approval to launch upwards of 50,000 solar mirrors into orbit in order to beam sunlight to Earth-based solar farms during the night, in essence creating an on-demand, 24-hour ability to tap into the power of the sun.

All, potentially, to the demise of our dark skies.

Reflect Orbital could launch a test satellite as early as this summer if it gets clearance from the FCC, which, according to a New York Times article on the topic, is mostly burdened with how these machines communicate. Otherwise, “the agency’s stance is that activities in space — which, by definition, are not on Earth — are not subject to environmental review,” a technicality that may damn our stars to the machinations of a cold, unconcerned bureaucracy. 

Once launched into orbit, the test satellite would deploy a 60-foot mirror designed to reflect enough light to appear as bright as the full moon.

The rub is that more test satellites could quickly follow. And by 2030, if the project were fully approved, larger mirrors would also be launched, culminating in an array of 50,000 satellites by 2035, some reflecting as much light as 100 full moons.

While Reflect Orbital claims the light would be visible only in the solar fields the satellites would be aimed at, scientists have raised questions, noting that light is naturally scattered in the Earth’s atmosphere, potentially subjecting far larger areas–and the humans, animals, and flora that live there–to eternal day.

But as us backpackers, night runners, dawn skiers, and 2 a.m. homeward bound stumblers know, there’s something inexplicable about the night sky, however we come to view it. While a few darting satellites can prove annoying, they don’t blot out entire swaths of the heavens. 

Otherwise, the stars are all of ours.

From seafaring voyagers to nomadic wanderers, scientists searching for answers, to skiing dads looking for a few good turns under a beautifully clear sky, the stars have always charted our path. They are our innate compass; their clarity is a litmus for where the march of industry has thankfully only gone so far. In all granting a backdrop for the purest of dreams that reflect the clarity of the night sky. Without our stars, who then are we?

Undeniably worse off, no matter the march of progress.

My predawn adventure proves to be an undeniably bad ski. On ascent, my skins are unable to find purchase several times, causing me to slide backward for an instant on the firm, groomed snow before I plunge my poles in and brace to a stop. The descent is similarly challenging. The refrozen spring snow is so firm my teeth chatter, and my ears ring as I make loud, scratchy turns down the fall line under the light of my headlamp.

But no matter the challenging ski, I still bask in the reason I came here in the first place, the same simple reason so many of us step outside in the dark: a clear sky full of stars. And we’ll take a little less on-demand power for that any day.

About The Last Chair Column

This article was written by POWDER writer Jack O’Brien for his bi-weekly ‘Last Chair’ column. Click below to read the previous column, ‘On (Inadvertently) Chasing Mountain Lions.'