Olympics is the single most extravagant event in a four-year calendar with billions of dollars spent on the ceremonies, new sports stadiums, decoration and unthinkable dazzling maneouvres. Having said that, it rarely comes as a surprise if anything can stand head and shoulders above the rest in an already jam-packed event. But, a startup named Star-ALE is going to do just that by making the first-ever artificial display of meteors raining from the sky during the opening ceremony! How do you beat that?
The whole spectacle will be visible from the Olympic stadium in Tokyo and surrounding areas. So, it will probably blow steam out of the whole fireworks display that usually dazzles the people around the globe. Star-ALE has been working on this project for a while now and will be conducting tests shortly. The basic principle is that a satellite will be rocketed to space containing pyrotechnic pellets. When the ceremony is near, the pyrotechnic balls will shoot down into the Earth’s atmosphere burning up and creating an artificial meteor shower that will be visible around a 120-mile radius along the Olympic stadium. Here is the video of the ambitious project:
The company will be launching micro-satellites for this purpose early next year and they will be carrying special pyrotechnic balls. The balls will only be released at specific points. They will be made from aerospace materials like Strontium and Rubidium and each one of them will give different glows when they start to burn and crash down. More than 500-1000 pellets will be used for the purpose and the only question I can think now is; would they be safe? Meteorites aren’t something you can take lightly and even a small one can create a lot of damage since the velocity is too high. The fact that they are burning bits of metal doesn’t help this cause either and I am baffled why nobody has raised this issue.
Each meteor will cost around $8,000 so a thousand one of these will be around $8 million and that is minus the satellite and propulsion costs. So, we are talking about scores of millions here. But, the Japanese government thinks it is worth it and that’s why it is continuing on with it. It will look amazing, no doubt about that!
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments section.
