U.N. Kills Any Plans to Use Mercury as a Rocket Propellant
spectrum.ieee.org
Space startup Apollo Fusion might have contaminated the upper atmosphere with the toxic metal

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

    • lefty7283@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      2 years ago

      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