At first glance, one would think that those who work for Rocket Lab, a little private aerospace company located near liberal Los Angeles, California, would be more environmentally conscious. After all, the city and the state in general have bans or restrictions on certain plastic products such as bags and straws, air quality concerns, high gasoline taxes, recycling, beach clean-ups and electrical vehicles.

Instead, Rocket Lab has launched the first non-functional satellite called Humanity Star, which is simply designed to attract attention on earth with bright flares and a reflective surface. While the company claims that the disco-ball shaped satellite is “a bright symbol and reminder to all on Earth about our fragile place in the universe”, the tiny satellite would still barely be visible on the vast night sky since it’s only 3 ft. in diameter.

But even if it can be seen, it would be hard to distinguish Humanity Star from a meteor and that it’s ridiculous to expect people to understand the liberal message simply by staring at a bright ball.

Critics, such as environmentalists from the political left and usually apolitical astronomers state that humanity doesn’t benefit from a “glittery space garbage”, a “publicity stunt”, and “space graffiti.” Indeed, nothing can be more ‘snowflake’ than a bunch of leftist scientists saying “Look at me, world!” than launching a satellite simply designed to attract viewers’ attention.

Nothing screams louder than “me, me, me!” by launching the world’s most useless satellite with the most loving and inclusive-sounding name, Humanity Star. But that’s just typical leftism, it always sounds ideal and has a pretty name, but almost never works out.

Usually, satellites become space junk after it stops functioning but still continues to orbit earth. But in this case, it’s space junk as soon as it reached outer space. It’s also pure hypocrisy: leftists care about the environment, but are first to deliberately make space junk.

In effect, the liberal space adventurers launched their own participation trophies: good enough to give themselves a back on the pat and bad enough for everyone else to roll their eyes.

Environmentalists say that humans tend to ruin everything everywhere they go, and in this case, outer space was ruined with its first participation trophy.