this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024

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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

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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 46 points 10 months ago (4 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

[–] SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There's been various desktop-grade plans regarding use of nuclear rockets, both in the atmosphere and not. Never underestimate what engineers can come up with.

I think what they were trying to argue is that the mercury emitted would be no worse than the mercury already emitted as a byproduct of power plants.

Most rocket operators/manufacturers run on razor thin margins or at a loss, sustained by state subsidies or wishful venture capitalists.

[–] lemann@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 10 months ago

I completely forgot about coal power plants 🤦‍♂️ now it makes sense as to why mercury was even considered a viable rocket fuel.

Very interesting, thanks for the info!

[–] 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.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

Isn't charcoal that?

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

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

Oh, it is definitely a competitive market at the moment, there are dozens of space startups with new rocket ideas trying to replace the old rocket companies. And many of these companies are seeing some great success, there's SpaceX and rocketlab of course, but firefly aerospace is also doing great, Stoke aerospace has the most innovative design I've seen in a while and may have a viable design for a fully reusable rocket. But there are many many more companies building rockets right now.

I've never heard of mercury propellent though, that sounds like a supremely terrible idea. And they would certainly need more than that to be competitive. Today, reusability and efficient construction techniques are the key to competitiveness, not novel propellants.

[–] Mbourgon@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

A two year old article, but it’s kind of nice to see that this shit was prevented

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

But we don't need regulation /s

[–] Tosti@feddit.nl 26 points 10 months ago

But it was so cheap... Would they think of the shareholders!

[–] Mango@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

THEY FOOKIN WOT!?

How the FUCK could that ever have even been considered!???!?

[–] lefty7283@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Mercury would be a denser propellant than xenon/other Nobel gasses used for ion thrusters in orbit. There’s been a ton of other insane fuel types proposed over the years which thankfully haven’t been used (although a lot of rockets have and still use toxic hypergolic fuels like hydrazine)

Good vid going over some of these fuels: https://youtu.be/_wLk2j7_KB0

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[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago

Project Orion's baby brother on the "bad idea" scale.