Squinting into the open night sky last Friday, Jenny responded, “What am I supposed to be looking at?” What she was looking at, but wasn’t seeing, was 50,000 of her boyfriend’s wasted dollars.
Jeremy Wiggins of El Segundo, CA thought he had come up with a unique way to propose to his girlfriend of 3 months. He commissioned SpaceX to position their Starlink satellites into the classic sky-written question, “Will you marry me?” The result, unfortunately, could not be seen on Earth, but did boost Starlink data speeds over L.A. for a short time.
“We told him they don’t light up,” said Starlink Public Relations Director, Emily Shanklin. “He replied that ‘he knows we paint them glow in the dark’, which we definitely do not. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
The makeshift constellation consisted of 157 of the approximate 4,000 Starlink satellites currently in orbit. Only about 14 satellites were visible, however, which were those currently in the Earth’s boundary of day and night where they reflect the sun’s rays. Unfortunately for Mr. Wiggins, those 12 satellites made up only the question mark of his grand gesture.
We’re sad to report that Jenny did not say yes. When we asked her about the proposal, she told us, “He pointed at literally nothing in the sky for like 8 minutes, nudging me and asking whether I’m blind. Eventually he said ‘fuck it’ and just proposed. But I’m not marrying any idiot that blows $50,000 on that and then proposes with cubic zirconia.”
SpaceX plans to release upwards of 12,000 Starlink satellites into orbit. Perhaps skywriting could become a lucrative supplemental income stream for the company, if they ever do decide to paint a few of them “glow in the dark”.
