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UN banned Apollo Fusion's business model of using mercury rocket propellant to launch satellites into space (spectrum.ieee.org)

submitted 10 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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UN banned Apollo Fusion's business model of using mercury rocket propellant to launch satellites into space::Startup Apollo Fusion was building thrusters that could have contaminated the upper atmosphere with the toxic metal

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[–] lemann@lemmy.dbzer0.com 53 points 10 months ago (7 children)

It's a bit shitty that anyone would even think of doing this to begin with IMO, especially considering that mercury's harmful nature is no secret!

Mercury is otherwise found as a by-product of other processes, such as the burning of coal

Actually susprised that it's even viable to use a byproduct of burning something else as a fuel

Apollo Fusion [...] insisted that the composition of its propellant mixture should be considered confidential information.

Good thing it wasn't considered in this scenario. Racing fuel using nitrous oxide and whatever is one thing, but spraying mercury everywhere into the atmosphere with a rocket honestly sounds like a sick joke

"[...] It would give you a competitive advantage in what I imagine is a pretty tight, competitive market"

Launching rockets is a competitive market? TIL, I thought there were only a handful of companies operating with very generous margins

[–] AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz 5 points 10 months ago

It's an ion thruster, not a rocket per say. You cannot use it in lower atmosphere at all (well you can but it doesn't do much), unfortunately some of the propellant would still find its way to the atmosphere.

The market of small thrusters for steering satellites is much larger than building actual rockets that take those satellites to orbit.

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