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+--- Thread: Company that aims to race SpaceX to Mars plays with fire (travel) (/thread-12068.html)
Company that aims to race SpaceX to Mars plays with fire (travel) - C C - Apr 12, 2022
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/pythom-space-tests-its-rocket-with-questionable-safety-practices/
EXCERPTS: There's a small rocket company based in eastern California named Pythom Space. [...] co-founders Tina and Tom Sjögren have the goal of flying to Mars in 2024-and if not then, by 2026.
[...] This seems naïve, of course. Even SpaceX ... is still years away from sending humans to Mars after its founding in 2002. But the Sjögrens are undaunted. "You have to work hard, but you do not have to be very smart," Tina Sjögren added.
So Pythom Space is pressing ahead with its ambitious goal of building a rocket, a spacecraft, and a Mars lander. [...] According to the company's website, 90 percent of a rocket's cost in the traditional space industry is related to personnel...
One area in which Pythom appears to be saving personnel costs is its safety and mission assurance department. On March 19, the company conducted a hold-down test of the first stage of its [small test model] Eiger rocket with a single engine. (The complete first stage will have nine small engines.)...
Lasting about 2 minutes and 40 seconds, the video shows a number of instances in which Pythom employees appear to be handling the Eiger rocket and its hypergolic propellants (furfuryl alcohol and nitric acid) with less than industry-standard care...
[...] The video prompted hundreds of replies on Twitter, including some from rather horrified rocket scientists. "We knew better as untrained college students," said Jordan Noone, the co-founder of Relativity Space.
[...] Pythom apparently did reply to an earlier message from someone in the industry about safety concerns. The company said the aerospace official was being "condescending and misinformed."... (MORE - missing details)
https://youtu.be/8GkzxeDQRj0
RE: Company that aims to race SpaceX to Mars plays with fire (travel) - Kornee - Apr 14, 2022
The amusing saga of 'Mission to Mars madness'. A crazy obsession compelling 'visionaries/fearless-entrepreneurs' to expend enormous effort and financial resources for what useful gain exactly?
To eventually thinly human populate an inherently inhospitable barren orb with an extremely unhealthy ~ 1/3rd Earth gravity level? Add in a bone dry surface, very cold at best, and very tenuous atmosphere inimical to human respiration, or even hardy-as crop production. Yet very meteorite and solar particle storm bombardment friendly.
So much to look forward to! What a glittering jewel awaits!
Hollywood inspiration has much to answer for imo. And 'Mission to Mars madness' is just one rather minor facet of that.