Astronomy: The Mirrors Are Coming

University of Connecticut Physics Professor Edgar Everhart is an amateur astronomer who has discovered one comet and is co-discoverer of an other. He takes his avocation seriously. When the city of Hartford installed street lights that Everhart considered needlessly bright, he complained that the glow they cast in the night sky interfered with celestial observations. But even Hartford's street lights paled into insignificance when Everhart got wind of Project AbleĀ—a little-publicized NASA and Defense Department project to put into orbit mirror-like satellites that would reflect the sun and illuminate large areas of earth at night.

The controversial proposal, which is...

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