Space Drugs Factory Denied Reentry to Earth | Hacker News Reader

Space Drugs Factory Denied Reentry to Earth

gizmodo.com

17 pointselorant15 comments

I'd be interested to know if the "safety concerns" are about the physical safety of the return vehicle, about the safety of the drugs, or political, but the article doesn't really get into that.

Based on this part:

Asparouhov is quoted as saying in an interview in Ars Technica. “We are effectively the polar opposite type of re-entry vehicle. If those are luxurious limousines, we’re building like a 1986 Toyota Corolla that is meant to be less than a million bucks a pop, quickly refurbished, and then shot right back into space.”

I'd speculate it's about the physical safety of the return vehicle.

This appears to be the safety sheet for ritonavir: https://cdn.caymanchem.com/cdn/msds/13872m.pdf The lowest fatal dose in mice is 400 mg/kg, and the LD50 is over 2500 mg/kg. It seems like a fatal dose would present more kinetic danger than chemical. Plus the entire capsule is only 120 kg. Even if it were entirely made of ritonavir, and a single human ingested all of it, they'd have to weigh 48kg or less to hit the LD50. It is listed as being an eye irritant, but I would imagine so are half the chemicals in a spacecraft.

I'd also be interested to know who neglected to plan ahead for a foreseeable situation.

FTA: “We’re pleased to report that our spacecraft is healthy across all systems. It was originally designed for a full year on orbit if needed,” Varda Space wrote on X. “We look forward to continuing to collaborate w/ our gov partners to bring our capsule back to Earth as soon as possible.”

Sounds like they did plan ahead for if they were unable to re-enter after 3 months as originally expected.

What's their plan if 1 year later they still don't have authorization to re-enter?

I mean, eventually I assume it will re-enter regardless of what the meatbags on the ground want.

Safety for the profits of the pharmaceutical companies lobbying the FAA probably.

> but the company responded with a two-word email that ominously read, “no comment.”

"Ominously", ha. The only two words you should say to a journalist

If the company didn't want their email to come across as 'Ominous' they should have replied 'no comment ;p' /s

The has serious "Andromeda Strain" vibes, to be honest. On the one hand: space factories, yay! On the other hand: major contamination event, ahoy!

Hard to say which path I support, really. I mean, I love the idea of manufacturing things in space - I wish we'd do more of it. I guess we really just need a safe place to land things .. and I say this as someone who stayed up late to watch the Genesis capsule recovery, and was sadly disappointed yet somehow still delighted at the conclusion of that mission ..

An intriguing conundrum for the future to solve.

I mean, no matter how hard anyone tries, there will be a few bacteria that get on a spacecraft. The major contamination shouldn't happen in space. It is however happening in the generic drug market, that's the reason a lot of cancer drugs are hard or impossible to find now.

pilot scale microgravity pharmacy production facility doesn't have the ring of Space Drugs Factory.

Is it really possible to deny reentry to earth? Could they not reorientate and enter someplace else and land?

As far as I know the FAA has authority no matter where they land because the company is in the US and they launched from the US.

That sounds ridiculously unreasonable! This basically means that, even if we were to enter some fantastical age of space travel (yeah I think I've been playing too much Starfield lol), we would still be beholden to this nonsensical bureacracy. What would be the point of going out and makimg discoveries that impact future generations to come if your neck is gonna end up under some "regulatory" agency's foot?

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