A razzle-dazzle ring circling the world

Originally published 16 February 1987

From the moment the plan for a thou­sand-foot-high tow­er was approved, the naysay­ers began to carp. Forty-sev­en writ­ers, archi­tects, and artists penned an indig­nant man­i­festo con­demn­ing the “black and gigan­tic fac­to­ry chim­ney” that would crush beneath it all of the beau­ty of Paris. The writer Guy de Mau­pas­sant called it “an unavoid­able and tor­ment­ing nightmare.”

A mon­stros­i­ty, a waste of mon­ey, a use­less fol­ly! At the begin­ning it seemed the tow­er had few cham­pi­ons oth­er than its design­er, Gus­tave Eif­fel, and the com­mit­tee charged with cre­at­ing a mon­u­ment to com­mem­o­rate the cen­ten­ni­al of the French Rev­o­lu­tion. But the tow­er was built. On May 15, 1889, it was opened to the pub­lic, on sched­ule, under bud­get, supreme­ly impres­sive and immense­ly pop­u­lar. It was the tallest struc­ture in the world and would remain so for 40 years.

In time, the tow­er won the hearts of all Parisians. Poets praised it. Pis­sar­ro, Dufy, Hen­ri Rousseau, Picas­so, and Utril­lo paint­ed it. An incal­cu­la­ble num­ber of sou­venir repli­cas have been sold to admir­ing tourists. Eif­fel’s much-maligned tow­er is today the beloved sym­bol of its city and its nation.

And now the French are look­ing for a way to com­mem­o­rate the Eif­fel Tow­er’s 100th anniver­sary. They have announced the win­ning entry in a com­pe­ti­tion to design such a memo­r­i­al. It is an inflat­able ring, 15 miles around, strung with high­ly reflec­tive, room-sized Mylar bal­loons, to be placed in orbit 500 miles above the Earth. The ring will orbit the Earth once every 100 min­utes, pass­ing peri­od­i­cal­ly over every inhab­it­ed place on Earth. It will shine by reflect­ed sun­light and will appear from the night­time side of the Earth as a cir­cle of light about the size of the moon. It will glow more bright­ly than the bright­est star.

Technology and razzle-dazzle

If iron and steel were the most tech­no­log­i­cal­ly advanced mate­ri­als of the late-19th cen­tu­ry, then tough, light­weight Mylar is an appro­pri­ate mate­r­i­al for the Space Age. And what more promi­nent place to put a mon­u­ment than in space itself. If all goes accord­ing to plan, some­time in late 1989 an Ari­ane rock­et will blast the struc­ture, deflat­ed and fold­ed, into orbit. Once in space, the ring will auto­mat­i­cal­ly inflate.

Is the pro­posed space struc­ture an envi­ron­men­tal atroc­i­ty? Will it be the friv­o­lous fore­run­ner of a sky full of orbit­ing cor­po­rate logos? If and when the French project gets under way, naysay­ers will have a field day. Fran­co­phobes will fume and astronomers will siz­zle. I risk the wrath of friends and col­leagues, but let me say I like the idea. Part tech­no­log­i­cal tour de force, part Gal­lic raz­zle-daz­zle, the space ring is cer­tain to become the most talked-about and looked-at arti­fact of our cen­tu­ry. And, with a lit­tle luck, the con­tro­ver­sy that will sur­round the project might spark inter­na­tion­al agree­ments on respon­si­ble use of space.

There are oth­er good things to say for it. Remark­ably, it will cost about the same as the Eif­fel Tow­er, only $1.5 mil­lion. It is designed to self-destruct in three years. At that time the ring will be auto­mat­i­cal­ly sev­ered by an explo­sive device, and the reflec­tive bal­loons will slip off one by one. They will spi­ral into the Earth­’s atmos­phere and burn up on re-entry.

Con­sid­er­ing the amount of worth­less junk and mil­i­tary para­pher­na­lia already in space, a whim­si­cal ring of light that will self-destruct seems not a bad thing. Sure, for a few years it will be a nui­sance to astronomers, and it will mess up a good num­ber of their time-exposed pho­tographs. But what’s more impor­tant: 5 bil­lion peo­ple gaz­ing at a won­der­ful appari­tion in the night sky, or the work of a few astronomers pho­tograph­ing dis­tant galaxies?

A light show for the world

Gus­tave Eif­fel was pained that his tow­er might be con­sid­ered friv­o­lous. Besides its “soul-inspir­ing aspects,” he claimed, the tow­er would have appli­ca­tions to defense and sci­ence. But it did lit­tle to aid the defense of Paris, and what­ev­er sci­en­tif­ic exper­i­ments car­ried out there were soon for­got­ten. It is the soul-inspir­ing aspects of the Eif­fel Tow­er that have endured, and it is the soul-inspir­ing aspects of the French space ring that will jus­ti­fy the project.

The cer­cle de lumière from the City of Light will be observed by far more peo­ple than ever saw the Eif­fel Tow­er. It will be a light show shared by Aussies down under and Lapps in Lap­land, by Parisians and Mus­covites alike. The space ring is a bit of French bravu­ra that can be enjoyed with égal­ité and fra­ter­nité by all.

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The pro­posed cer­cle de lumière nev­er got off the draw­ing board. The 100th anniver­sary of the Eif­fel Tow­er was cel­e­brat­ed in a slight­ly less auda­cious man­ner. ‑Ed.