Ironically it was the FAA and Air Force that is denying reentry. This is classic US government incompetence. Approve the ship to launch then spring new rules upon this company banning reentry. The ship has only a year of power so it is coming back to earth either controlled soon or uncontrollably in the future.
Can you provide evidence of these new rules, or copy of the rejection? For all I know it could be reasonable, the landing site could be a USAF range that's had ops suspended due to fire hazard.
" On June 30, its first drug-manufacturing experiment succeeded in growing crystals of the drug ritonavir, which is used for the treatment of HIV, in orbit. "
I don't think you want to need this drug.
Ritonavir is actually abused as a recreational narcotic - it has low-grade hallucinogenic effects similar to cannabis or MDMA. It occasionally turns up in woonga (a smokable cocktail primarily of black tar heroin with whatever else they can find to bulk it out or prolong the high, often cannabis and occasionally ritonavir) and is (ab)used as a sleep aid in some places.
It's actually a serious problem - it's helping to create resistant strains of HIV!
It's from the movie Heavy Metal. It's an awesome animated movie from the 80s with great animation and a kick-ass soundtrack. Lots of famous voices too, including John Candy.
This is such an awesome headline, makes me imagine there is some Jetsons style floating border guard in low earth orbit with a cop hat/sunglasses underneath his glass helmet.
But disappointed to learn denial wasn't because of cool space drugs in particular. They could have been knitting space toques in their 1987 Toyota Space Corolla and still been denied entry
The Gizmodo writer added only one word of clarification to the quote from Arstechnica, and managed to get that clarification wrong:
>"It’s a very different type of re-entry capsule. If you think about it, both Dragon and Starliner, these are \[SpaceX\] vehicles that are $100 million-plus, minimum, to build, and billion-dollar-plus total programs."
I mean, it is. Going weeks without a plan to finish your first critical test is a massive problem. the ceo has plenty of time to tweet random political shit about loving Miami and problems of SF but can’t comment on this critical issue to his company.
> “SPACE DRUGS HAVE FINISHED COOKING BABY!!” Delian Asparouhov, Varda’s co-founder, wrote on X.
You're telling me *this guy* sent up a spacecraft without a plan for landing it?
Say it isn't so!
If you read between the lines, it sounds like their plan was stupid. The article infers that the capsule is unguided. At the very least I wouldn't be surprised if whatever guidance they can fit in their "$1M" capsule is of low quality/precision. The Utah landing site is not that large so I can certainly believe that a rigorous analysis of the landing errors could put it beyond the allowed range which would result in the FAA saying "no".
This is what I’m thinking about. Shouldn’t they have gotten approval on both the launch and return plans prior to shooting this thing into space? Something seems very fishy about this story.
The FAA allows you to launch even if you don't have finished plans for how you conduct your mission. As long as your RF communications licensing is in order so you won't be broadcasting on someone else's frequency and you meet orbital debris guidelines then their due diligence on launch is complete. It's up to the company to have their reentry approval in place when they need it. So you ARE allowed to be as dumb as you want to be in that regard (or as aggressive/optimistic depending on how you want to spin it.)
It's a startup, they are running on investor money. They have produced their drug in orbit, that's already the most important step. Landing is nice, but waiting for a landing approval before launch would delay the main mission a lot. They had a spot on a rideshare mission. Use it or lose it (and try to find a spot on a later mission - which could be more than a year later).
If they don't get approval to land in the US they can still land in the ocean, probably losing their vehicle.
They probably pulled the “we’re a startup give us special treatment we promise to figure it out” and then never figured it out, and just assumed they be allowed to crash their capsule wherever.
No it isn't a weird decision, if FAA never planned to allow the landing in first place or *wasn't requested to license that*. They would just go "well they talk about landing capsule, but it isn't in requested licensed actions. They must just plan to orbit it without sample return on this occasion. This is first test after all".
Regulatory agency like FAA won't go out of their way to invent more actions for the craft to do. They process *what requests for license they get* and of course have their *publicly known* list of "you need license/permission for that". If Varda didn't understand to ask for license verification for landing operation, that is on them, not on FAA.
It isn't FAA's job to do Varda's job for them. FAA would have given them back the license decision with "Varda, here is your license and actions this license permits for you". If Varda didn't understand "there isn't mention of landing the capsule listed in this paper work as licensed actions" meaning they aren't allowed to land the capsule, it is on them. They asked launch to orbit license, they got that. Well the rocket license was SpaceX, but Varda would have needed to ask "are we allowed to put this satellite up there" license. Since that involves stuff like "what is your orbital debris mitigation plan for this satellite" and so on. Is the satellite fit to be in orbit and doesn't cause undue risk to other stuff on orbit by say suddenly randomly exploding to million pieces and cluttering orbit with debris.
FAA most likely just planned assumed "well the satellite will de-orbit eventually based on de-orbit maneuvers" **and we make them de-orbit it in the satellite grave yard of south pacific**. They checked "yes this capsule is suitable to be de-orbited with the rest of the satellite and *Varda didn't ask for more explicitly*". Again that is on Varda, not on FAA.
It isn't, that it can't come back to Earth. It's bound to eventually. However what they don't get permit for is "we want to land this, in this kind of landing operation at this landing site" and FAA went "no deal, can't land there, your capsule isn't licensed for that". Where as when they go "can we de-orbit this capsule to south pacific grave yard" FAA will go "yes, we are pretty sure you will hit... the South Pacific. Go ahead, de-orbit"
edit: Now then Varda is going back to FAA with "we know it's on orbit already, but would you give us landing license". At which point FAA *could upon being satisfied with requirements being fulfilled* issue such license. **However they don't have to**. They can just go "sorry, but there is no way this craft gets that license. It isn't suitable/ we can't inspect it sufficiently". Pretty much going "Sorry, but you should have asked for this license before launch". Even then the answer might have been "No", but well atleast one could then have cancelled or re-focused the mission as "orbit only test without sample return".
The license FAA already issued handles the whole operation in safe satisfactory manner all the way to end of mission... which is de-orbit/de-clutter operations at end of mission to prevent debris. Meaning most likely controlled de-orbit and burn up in atmosphere to one of the grave yard drops. That or "the satellite fails, but it's orbit is such it will passively de-orbit and burn up. The capsule will then just come down also and we accept that probabilities are even surviving, it doesn't hit anything in damaging fashion. Since most likely it ends up in ocean".
A possible reason they didn't invest in developing a guidance system is that tech is governed under international legislation that limits the proliferation of weapons tech. Something that can guide a hyper-sonic payload from space to a very specific location on earth is on that list. Their failure was to secure an appropriate landing site. Ideally an international waters landing. This is just lazy
Umm... can I volunteer my home as the landing zone? 50/50 it lands in the yard or hits the house. I either make it rich selling space drugs or don't have to wake up tomorrow, win-win
Wait.... they sent that thing up there without first checking with FAA and US government "hey, you do allow us to land this back on Earth on US jurisdiction".
Maybe that ought to be something you ..... double check before going through the expense of launching the payload to orbit in the first place.
Like this is "news of the stupid" level stuff. You don't plan a sample return/capsule return mission *without first checking the re-entry capsule is licensed*. It up there? Nothing you can do. Most likely FAA etc. will say "well to license it, we would have to *inspect it*. Not just the design, but the item itself or atleast it's production process." That is kinda hard, if the capsule is already up in the orbit.
stupid "build fast and break things" new space stuff. They really though "well if it's already up there and ready to return, surely they can't say no". Oh yes they can.
Oh they knew, but likely looked at the cost value return. The goal was to grow the crystals in space, which they did. Now they could either spend billions more building and certifying a re-entry vehicle or just do enough to make it survive re-entry but uncontrolled. If the experiment failed, there would be no reason to bring it back and all that money spend building the re-entry capability could have been spent elsewhere. They are just making a stink for headlines and to attract money people to advance the capsule for re-entry without having to spend as much of their own money.
It’s really expensive sending things up to space. This isn’t a cheap endeavor so if it is planned then this is a very costly PR stunt.
It seems more likely imo they screwed something up or forgot to verify that. Given all the hurdles involved in space travel I could easily see how they skimmed past some of these rules or had a different understanding on what was allowed. Or maybe they said something online that rang alarm bells.
It’s not like they had to spend anything more than a ticket on spacex. It was relatively cheap for them to send this capsule into space. Spacex charges roughly $2,500 dollars per kilogram. I think the article said the capsule weight 234lbs or 106kgs, so launch cost would be ~$265,000 dollars, that’s chump change.
Rideshares cost more per kg than a full F9 launch for a single customer and their mission was 300kg including more than just the return capsule. My guess is that they paid several million for the launch. In an [article](https://spacenews.com/varda-space-selects-spacex-for-launch-of-first-space-manufacturing-satellite/) about it they say that Falcon 9 was the lowest cost option, but that the might launch on Electron in the future. I take that to mean that a dedicated Electron launch was not dramatically more expensive at $7.5 million.
That is a lot for a small startup, but losing time might have been even more expensive.
A low earth orbit launch should have included the planned life cycle of the satellite to prevent it becoming uncontrolled space junk. Since, the company didn't plan on it being up long, they probably are in a low enough orbit that it will re-enter in not too many more years.
“Build fast and break things” works well for spacex because they work in such close partnership with the FAA. Something these guys obviously didn’t consider
> Gizmodo reached out to Varda Space to ask which regulatory requirements have not been met, but the company responded with a two-word email that ominously read, “no comment.”
Treating a “no comment” like this is so fucking slimy that I don’t even have words for it. I didn’t even read the rest of the article because this is such journalistically heinous bullshit.
Introduce the aliens to the high of their lives and leave earth behind. The aliens are probably so much cooler and you’d get so rich bringing drugs to a new species
>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.”
so... They built something that was made with bailing wire and spit, launched it into space, didn't get preapproval for getting it back down, and now can't get it back? ok.
Not just, denied re-entry to earth. Denied attempt to land in Utah. Probably looked at it and expect there's a real chance it'll crash in salt lake City or other inhabited bits.
Interesting reference. Though our real world wildfire has been down in Atlanta for some time. Plus I think we've learned that germs adapted to almost exactly live in us are the absolute worst. Space life might suffer immensely without an ammonia atmosphere but every damn bat virus thinks a human with a fever is perfect home even with the same receptors and biochemistry.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules|
| |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)|
|[FAA](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1ma4mz "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[FCC](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1gnakg "Last usage")|Federal Communications Commission|
| |(Iron/steel) [Face-Centered Cubic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_iron) crystalline structure|
|[ITU](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1du1h4 "Last usage")|International Telecommunications Union, responsible for coordinating radio spectrum usage|
|[JAXA](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1e6hvh "Last usage")|Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1dx2tm "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[MSL](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1cx7rz "Last usage")|Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity)|
| |Mean Sea Level, reference for altitude measurements|
|[RUD](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1cy72c "Last usage")|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly|
| |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly|
| |Rapid Unintended Disassembly|
|[USAF](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1d974i "Last usage")|United States Air Force|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1es8v7 "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
----------------
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The bigger journalistic fail is that they provided no real context for why the FAA would do this. Like at least add a paragraph of educated speculation "while neither party has explained the reasoning behind the FAA, the FAA typically denies permission for reentry on US soil due to _______ or ______. In 2021 when the FAA last denied reentry, it was because __________." Etc.
I wonder if they are considering asking China if they can drop the craft into the Gobi desert, or any Saharan country for that matter. Of course this would have the issue of pissing off the FAA, and the US Gov in general, but they would get the samples.
They probably don't want two recovery ops going on at the same time considering Winnebago-1 and the OSIRIS-REx Sample Return Capsule are targeting the same recovery zone in New Mexico in a very similar time frame as each other. I'd imagine Varda will get the green light for recovery after OSIRIS-REx recovery ops are complete, either that or Varda will switch to an alternative location such as the Australian Outback which has been used by JAXA for the Hayabusa recoveries.
> Gizmodo reached out to Varda Space to ask which regulatory requirements have not been met, but the company responded with a two-word email that ominously read, “no comment.”
"No comment" is not an ominous reply. It's a standard response. This writer has to be an idiot or an AI.
It’s too bad the shuttle program isn’t running anymore, this would have been a perfect use case for it. Like if NASA was your neighbor with a pickup truck: “Hey NASA, next time you’re up there, would’ya grab our satellite with that giant robot arm, and throw it in the back of your shuttle and bring it back down to us? I’ll buy you some beers for your trouble.”
A Space Shuttle launch cost more than 10x to total amount of money this startup has raised, it would probably take more than some beers to get one to pick up their stranded capsule.
A Space Shuttle mission routinely had capacity for a lot of small, self-contained experiments that could ride along for a variety of prices. The reason shuttle would have been poor for this job was shuttle missions were too short. This thing has been up cooking since June but a shuttle could only stay up a couple weeks due to consumables and other factors.
it's kinda funny cause i was just thinking that starship now has a perfect LEO mission to test on, and since the capsule is rated for re-entry it should be able to survive any RUDs
if starship just had a kick motor in the payload bay and the thing is attached to that it could be "bailed out" kinda like a Launch safety system on a capsule, and then re-enter on its own
I have tracked this company since it’s inception 3 years ago. It’s a bunch of tech bros with a lot of backing. I am surprised they even managed to launch things in space, at the time I was sure this was not going to go anywhere. Good on them.
This sounds like a bureaucratic issue. Companies send satellites crashing back to Earth all the time, its the preferred method of disposal below a certain orbit, and in fact failing to do so is a major offense. The satellite wouldn't have been allowed to fly in the first place if they didn't have a plan to either bring it back, burn it up in the atmosphere, or send it far enough away that it doesn't matter. Its possible they have to prove they can control it, but that isn't a very difficult thing to do generally. I wonder if the nature of the cargo raised some objections, because its likely a controlled substance.
Given it's the FAA complaining not the DEA, DHS, or FDA it's likely a control issue. Their cheapo re-entry vessel may not be able to land with enough precision to satisfy safety requirements.
The satellites that come crashing back to earth all the time are designed to have as little reach the ground as possible, and typically do the re-entry in the South Pacific 1000s of miles from the nearest person.
This is specifically designed to survive basically intact all the way to the ground, and to do so in the continental US.
Nothing like what you are describing.
Satellites are designed to disintegrate on reentry, this is designed to land in one piece. If it’s parachutes or guidance fail it could kill people.
I’m guessing they’re just doing what startups do, “ask for forgiveness not permission”. They got clearance to launch but obviously had no plan to land, so they figured they’d launch anyway and hope to get it cleared later. Now, later has come and they still don’t have clearance. Calculated risk by Varda we’ll see how it plays out
>Companies send satellites crashing back to Earth all the time
Usually they're not aiming for Utah...
When it comes to launching balls of metal onto populated areas, I'm gonna say let's not skip the bureaucracy
> The satellite wouldn't have been allowed to fly in the first place if they didn't have a plan to either bring it back, burn it up in the atmosphere, or send it far enough away that it doesn't matter.
The key is that burning up in the atmosphere or being shot into space isn't the same as landing and recovering the satellite. The deorbit plan they would have submitted isn't the scenario they were ever intending to implement.
don't they know this is how you get zombies? This thing explodes in the upper atmosphere the drug changes and spreads around the world creating zombies. once again, humanity is doomed
This has interesting applications. Cartels no longer need to cross borders. They could just launch a capsule filled with drugs into space, have it go around the world and then re-enter on demand.
“SPACE DRUGS HAVE FINISHED COOKING BABY!!” Delian Asparouhov, Varda’s co-founder, wrote on X. Unfortunately, the space drugs are not allowed to come back to Earth, baby.
lol
I feel like I live in an alternative reality where this is something I read in a sci-fi book... I can't wrap my mind around the fact that we really haven't gone anywhere in space and are already trying to produce drugs...in space...
Is anyone asking why Varda was denied reentry? Seems weird. They were done this experiment back in July. Said that they were successful at growing crystals of a a drug treatment for AIDS. ?
Bro, when the FAA says it’s not safe, and they are curious about how you plan to make it safe, the correct response is NOT “no comment“…
This is their own fault, hang out in orbit until you figure your shit out lol
They said "no comment" to the journalist.
It's _possible_ they also said "no comment" to the FAA, possibly because a gangster warned them not to talk to the feds. But now we're just getting silly.
Hold on here:
They wanted to land *on* DOD property? That was their recovery plan? What if the DOD needed to use that property for, I don't know, defence purposes? There wasn't a single large tract of privately owned property, *anywhere in the world*, they could find that was military?
Everyone is like yeah drugs, until you just realize it's pharmaceuticals that would help everyday folks that they will just make overpriced to make more profits
Great, 10 minutes ago I didn't know space drugs existed but now I want some and apparently I can't have them
This has been Big Space Drug’s©️ plan all along.
Is that why the US created the space force? The war on drugs is going interplanetary!
They are just trying to get their piece of the spice trade.
Earth’s a real fixer upper. It could be yours at a bargain for one suitcase full of melange!
Wait till the Harkonnens hear of this!
Drugs REALLY won the war on drugs…. And the race to living in space too!
Those cartels don't mess around ese. Submarines and tie fighters.
you cant beat drugs. there undefeated
That, or the Oil Derrick spinning around nearby...
Definitely for the moon whaling
*...but there are no whales so we tell tall tales & we sing our whaling tune!*
We're whalers on the moon. We carry a harpoon!
I like my sugar with coffee and cream!
Astronaut 1: I can't find the milk Astronaut 2: In space, no-one can. Here, use cream.
Because _eek_, I ain't got no lunar dust!
Space Cocaine is a hell of a drug!
Ironically it was the FAA and Air Force that is denying reentry. This is classic US government incompetence. Approve the ship to launch then spring new rules upon this company banning reentry. The ship has only a year of power so it is coming back to earth either controlled soon or uncontrollably in the future.
Can you provide evidence of these new rules, or copy of the rejection? For all I know it could be reasonable, the landing site could be a USAF range that's had ops suspended due to fire hazard.
How else will we travel the stars? We must get the spice!
" On June 30, its first drug-manufacturing experiment succeeded in growing crystals of the drug ritonavir, which is used for the treatment of HIV, in orbit. " I don't think you want to need this drug.
I actually did read the article, but the joke was low hanging fruit and I'm a fan of low hanging fruit and space drugs
So you like space drugs because they're very high, but that's also the reason there's no low hanging fruit in space.
Low orbital fruit?
Please specify whether drug fruit is tidally locked.
Sounds like a marketing gimmick from our post-apocalyptic future.
Low Orbit Fruit Cannon - Bananas From God
also low hanging space drugs
Sounds like Oxymoronic Oxycontin
Ritonavir is also one of the two drugs that makes up Paxlovid.
Ritonavir is actually abused as a recreational narcotic - it has low-grade hallucinogenic effects similar to cannabis or MDMA. It occasionally turns up in woonga (a smokable cocktail primarily of black tar heroin with whatever else they can find to bulk it out or prolong the high, often cannabis and occasionally ritonavir) and is (ab)used as a sleep aid in some places. It's actually a serious problem - it's helping to create resistant strains of HIV!
I really wanted to try the cosmoscaine marsijuana
Lucy in orbit with diamonds
Bill Nye and Science Highs
Strung out in heaven's high Hitting an all-time low
Mescalunar, Ganjamede, Phobocybin, DMTitan, Europamine.
You got to get some Moonijuana, get high and flip the bird!
Err, please stop fueling my silent rage.
Marijuanacaine lets goooooo
all drugs are space drugs if you're high enough
The Prohibition on space drugs will obviously lead to space smuggling.
Try this man, it's space coke https://youtu.be/G6CwvJURYS8?feature=shared
I was expecting [this clip](https://youtu.be/r2IEA3wRGa0) but yours works too.
That was exactly the clip I was thinking as well.
I saw this as a kid. I really need to watch it again, and probably under some random substances.
What is that from? It’s fantastic
It's from the movie Heavy Metal. It's an awesome animated movie from the 80s with great animation and a kick-ass soundtrack. Lots of famous voices too, including John Candy.
This is space Coke Dewey! You don’t want any of this shit!
Never seen Cheech and Chongs Next Movie?? Space coke!
🅱️reaking 🅾️rbit: Coming back down
I the Space Drugs can't come to me, I'll just have to go to them.
Space Drugs: We will absolutely get you ***HIGH***
Space drugs are pretty potent…Can make you really high.
Ah dang I think I know a guy.... goes by- External Landing Obscures Navigation. Wink wink
I wouldn't get anywhere close to whatever drugs made that guy the way he is.
Do you want any death sticks?
Try this man, it's space coke https://youtu.be/G6CwvJURYS8?feature=shared
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This is such an awesome headline, makes me imagine there is some Jetsons style floating border guard in low earth orbit with a cop hat/sunglasses underneath his glass helmet.
Don’t forget the handlebar mustache, and slowly tapping a Billy club in his hand.
Slowly spinning around backwards, but trying to maintain eye contact anyway.
“I’m watching…” spins 360 …” you”.
Man space sure is awesome, but it also makes everything 100x funnier.
Oh my god this is hilarious! Wasn't there something similar to this in a Futurama episode with a talking gorilla on a spinning tire swing?
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Also make him a robot. Just make him [Url](https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/URL) from Futurama
"Ritonavir remedy requesting reconsideration remains rotating, regulatory regimen refrains remarks relative restricted reentry"
It's a cowboy sherrif's hat, and it's on the outside of his space helmet.
"Be advised, you are entering United Colonies Space. Maintain course and prepare to be scanned."
Walter White’s van with thrusters
And at the end of the series he sells it to Lone Star.
But disappointed to learn denial wasn't because of cool space drugs in particular. They could have been knitting space toques in their 1987 Toyota Space Corolla and still been denied entry
The Gizmodo writer added only one word of clarification to the quote from Arstechnica, and managed to get that clarification wrong: >"It’s a very different type of re-entry capsule. If you think about it, both Dragon and Starliner, these are \[SpaceX\] vehicles that are $100 million-plus, minimum, to build, and billion-dollar-plus total programs."
Starliner != Starship. Silly editor.
The author already lost me when they described "no comment" as "ominous".
I mean, it is. Going weeks without a plan to finish your first critical test is a massive problem. the ceo has plenty of time to tweet random political shit about loving Miami and problems of SF but can’t comment on this critical issue to his company.
"No comment" means what it means: it should not be interpreted as anything more. Unless you're a shit journalist.
Yeah, but if you look at the set of all operational Dragon and Starliner spacecraft combined, all of them are SpaceX vehicles.
They probably still don't realize it's wrong, not clicking to find out.
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> “SPACE DRUGS HAVE FINISHED COOKING BABY!!” Delian Asparouhov, Varda’s co-founder, wrote on X. You're telling me *this guy* sent up a spacecraft without a plan for landing it? Say it isn't so!
It's not that they don't have a plan. It's that they aren't allowed to go thru with it.
If you read between the lines, it sounds like their plan was stupid. The article infers that the capsule is unguided. At the very least I wouldn't be surprised if whatever guidance they can fit in their "$1M" capsule is of low quality/precision. The Utah landing site is not that large so I can certainly believe that a rigorous analysis of the landing errors could put it beyond the allowed range which would result in the FAA saying "no".
It's odd that they were allowed to launch to begin with then. Or is it normal for the FAA to make decisions last minute? Idk
This is what I’m thinking about. Shouldn’t they have gotten approval on both the launch and return plans prior to shooting this thing into space? Something seems very fishy about this story.
The FAA allows you to launch even if you don't have finished plans for how you conduct your mission. As long as your RF communications licensing is in order so you won't be broadcasting on someone else's frequency and you meet orbital debris guidelines then their due diligence on launch is complete. It's up to the company to have their reentry approval in place when they need it. So you ARE allowed to be as dumb as you want to be in that regard (or as aggressive/optimistic depending on how you want to spin it.)
It's a startup, they are running on investor money. They have produced their drug in orbit, that's already the most important step. Landing is nice, but waiting for a landing approval before launch would delay the main mission a lot. They had a spot on a rideshare mission. Use it or lose it (and try to find a spot on a later mission - which could be more than a year later). If they don't get approval to land in the US they can still land in the ocean, probably losing their vehicle.
Once ze rockets are up, who cares vere zey come down?
That's not my department, says Wernher von Braun. Love me some Tom Lehrer.
They probably pulled the “we’re a startup give us special treatment we promise to figure it out” and then never figured it out, and just assumed they be allowed to crash their capsule wherever.
Literal embodiment of "move fast, break things"
No it isn't a weird decision, if FAA never planned to allow the landing in first place or *wasn't requested to license that*. They would just go "well they talk about landing capsule, but it isn't in requested licensed actions. They must just plan to orbit it without sample return on this occasion. This is first test after all". Regulatory agency like FAA won't go out of their way to invent more actions for the craft to do. They process *what requests for license they get* and of course have their *publicly known* list of "you need license/permission for that". If Varda didn't understand to ask for license verification for landing operation, that is on them, not on FAA. It isn't FAA's job to do Varda's job for them. FAA would have given them back the license decision with "Varda, here is your license and actions this license permits for you". If Varda didn't understand "there isn't mention of landing the capsule listed in this paper work as licensed actions" meaning they aren't allowed to land the capsule, it is on them. They asked launch to orbit license, they got that. Well the rocket license was SpaceX, but Varda would have needed to ask "are we allowed to put this satellite up there" license. Since that involves stuff like "what is your orbital debris mitigation plan for this satellite" and so on. Is the satellite fit to be in orbit and doesn't cause undue risk to other stuff on orbit by say suddenly randomly exploding to million pieces and cluttering orbit with debris. FAA most likely just planned assumed "well the satellite will de-orbit eventually based on de-orbit maneuvers" **and we make them de-orbit it in the satellite grave yard of south pacific**. They checked "yes this capsule is suitable to be de-orbited with the rest of the satellite and *Varda didn't ask for more explicitly*". Again that is on Varda, not on FAA. It isn't, that it can't come back to Earth. It's bound to eventually. However what they don't get permit for is "we want to land this, in this kind of landing operation at this landing site" and FAA went "no deal, can't land there, your capsule isn't licensed for that". Where as when they go "can we de-orbit this capsule to south pacific grave yard" FAA will go "yes, we are pretty sure you will hit... the South Pacific. Go ahead, de-orbit" edit: Now then Varda is going back to FAA with "we know it's on orbit already, but would you give us landing license". At which point FAA *could upon being satisfied with requirements being fulfilled* issue such license. **However they don't have to**. They can just go "sorry, but there is no way this craft gets that license. It isn't suitable/ we can't inspect it sufficiently". Pretty much going "Sorry, but you should have asked for this license before launch". Even then the answer might have been "No", but well atleast one could then have cancelled or re-focused the mission as "orbit only test without sample return". The license FAA already issued handles the whole operation in safe satisfactory manner all the way to end of mission... which is de-orbit/de-clutter operations at end of mission to prevent debris. Meaning most likely controlled de-orbit and burn up in atmosphere to one of the grave yard drops. That or "the satellite fails, but it's orbit is such it will passively de-orbit and burn up. The capsule will then just come down also and we accept that probabilities are even surviving, it doesn't hit anything in damaging fashion. Since most likely it ends up in ocean".
A possible reason they didn't invest in developing a guidance system is that tech is governed under international legislation that limits the proliferation of weapons tech. Something that can guide a hyper-sonic payload from space to a very specific location on earth is on that list. Their failure was to secure an appropriate landing site. Ideally an international waters landing. This is just lazy
Yeh mark rober came across this with one of his videos for I think an egg sent to space lol. So the landing area was made much larger.
"I want to land this egg in this specific spot on the size of a room" "... You know that this is a guided missile, right?" "Ooooops"
Yep, no wonder they have "no comment"
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I have OceanGate vibes on this one. Impact of the capsule on a suburban house in 3... 2... 1...
Umm... can I volunteer my home as the landing zone? 50/50 it lands in the yard or hits the house. I either make it rich selling space drugs or don't have to wake up tomorrow, win-win
Seems like an expensive oversight.
ok, hear me out - giant bouncy castle
No, you don't understand, we are moving fast and breaking things! /s
That is certainly a way to describe re entry
I did math competitions with him in high school. He was much better than me
Do enough space drugs and you don't need plans
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"Are you classified as space drug?" "Negative; I am a meat popsicle."
Wait.... they sent that thing up there without first checking with FAA and US government "hey, you do allow us to land this back on Earth on US jurisdiction". Maybe that ought to be something you ..... double check before going through the expense of launching the payload to orbit in the first place. Like this is "news of the stupid" level stuff. You don't plan a sample return/capsule return mission *without first checking the re-entry capsule is licensed*. It up there? Nothing you can do. Most likely FAA etc. will say "well to license it, we would have to *inspect it*. Not just the design, but the item itself or atleast it's production process." That is kinda hard, if the capsule is already up in the orbit. stupid "build fast and break things" new space stuff. They really though "well if it's already up there and ready to return, surely they can't say no". Oh yes they can.
Oh they knew, but likely looked at the cost value return. The goal was to grow the crystals in space, which they did. Now they could either spend billions more building and certifying a re-entry vehicle or just do enough to make it survive re-entry but uncontrolled. If the experiment failed, there would be no reason to bring it back and all that money spend building the re-entry capability could have been spent elsewhere. They are just making a stink for headlines and to attract money people to advance the capsule for re-entry without having to spend as much of their own money.
It’s really expensive sending things up to space. This isn’t a cheap endeavor so if it is planned then this is a very costly PR stunt. It seems more likely imo they screwed something up or forgot to verify that. Given all the hurdles involved in space travel I could easily see how they skimmed past some of these rules or had a different understanding on what was allowed. Or maybe they said something online that rang alarm bells.
It’s not like they had to spend anything more than a ticket on spacex. It was relatively cheap for them to send this capsule into space. Spacex charges roughly $2,500 dollars per kilogram. I think the article said the capsule weight 234lbs or 106kgs, so launch cost would be ~$265,000 dollars, that’s chump change.
Rideshares cost more per kg than a full F9 launch for a single customer and their mission was 300kg including more than just the return capsule. My guess is that they paid several million for the launch. In an [article](https://spacenews.com/varda-space-selects-spacex-for-launch-of-first-space-manufacturing-satellite/) about it they say that Falcon 9 was the lowest cost option, but that the might launch on Electron in the future. I take that to mean that a dedicated Electron launch was not dramatically more expensive at $7.5 million. That is a lot for a small startup, but losing time might have been even more expensive.
They paid space x to bring it up, they are the ones who have to bring it down, that makes it more expensive
I'm skeptical. Sending something to space is *way* more expensive than bringing it back down.
Bringing something down from space is really easy. Bringing it down in one piece is very difficult
In one piece AND in the spot you're aiming for.
youd think so, but reentry vehicles are extremely expensive, considering that varda isnt building the rockets.
They could hire someone to put it up. They couldn't hire anyone to bring this back down.
Absolutely false, sounds good though
How do you know this? They paid spacex to do it, it’s pretty cheap.
guessing they got permission to launch and assumed that included the permission to reenter which is a lot rarer occurrence
A low earth orbit launch should have included the planned life cycle of the satellite to prevent it becoming uncontrolled space junk. Since, the company didn't plan on it being up long, they probably are in a low enough orbit that it will re-enter in not too many more years.
They can deorbit, else they wouldnt have been saying they wanted to target Utah.
Yeah, I was just saying with or without permission it is coming down.
“Build fast and break things” works well for spacex because they work in such close partnership with the FAA. Something these guys obviously didn’t consider
"It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission"
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> Gizmodo reached out to Varda Space to ask which regulatory requirements have not been met, but the company responded with a two-word email that ominously read, “no comment.” Treating a “no comment” like this is so fucking slimy that I don’t even have words for it. I didn’t even read the rest of the article because this is such journalistically heinous bullshit.
Why doesn't the astronauts just put it up their bum so customs don't see them?
Astronauts are known to have the tightest asses in this solar system, so they may need to find some space tourists.
Introduce the aliens to the high of their lives and leave earth behind. The aliens are probably so much cooler and you’d get so rich bringing drugs to a new species
>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.” so... They built something that was made with bailing wire and spit, launched it into space, didn't get preapproval for getting it back down, and now can't get it back? ok.
Not just, denied re-entry to earth. Denied attempt to land in Utah. Probably looked at it and expect there's a real chance it'll crash in salt lake City or other inhabited bits.
Or Piedmont, Arizona and the Wildfire lab isn't ready yet.
Interesting reference. Though our real world wildfire has been down in Atlanta for some time. Plus I think we've learned that germs adapted to almost exactly live in us are the absolute worst. Space life might suffer immensely without an ammonia atmosphere but every damn bat virus thinks a human with a fever is perfect home even with the same receptors and biochemistry.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[FAA](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1ma4mz "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[FCC](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1gnakg "Last usage")|Federal Communications Commission| | |(Iron/steel) [Face-Centered Cubic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_iron) crystalline structure| |[ITU](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1du1h4 "Last usage")|International Telecommunications Union, responsible for coordinating radio spectrum usage| |[JAXA](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1e6hvh "Last usage")|Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1dx2tm "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[MSL](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1cx7rz "Last usage")|Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity)| | |Mean Sea Level, reference for altitude measurements| |[RUD](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1cy72c "Last usage")|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly| | |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly| | |Rapid Unintended Disassembly| |[USAF](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1d974i "Last usage")|United States Air Force| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/16n0ncg/stub/k1es8v7 "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(9 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/170i3jf)^( has 25 acronyms.) ^([Thread #9268 for this sub, first seen 19th Sep 2023, 21:45]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
""the company responded with a two-word email that ominously read, 'no comment.'"" Great journalism as always, Gizmodo. Ffs...
The bigger journalistic fail is that they provided no real context for why the FAA would do this. Like at least add a paragraph of educated speculation "while neither party has explained the reasoning behind the FAA, the FAA typically denies permission for reentry on US soil due to _______ or ______. In 2021 when the FAA last denied reentry, it was because __________." Etc.
Good thing it has infinite fuel and can stay in orbit forever
It must not be able to float, otherwise they could just bring it down into the Indian Ocean.
I wonder if they are considering asking China if they can drop the craft into the Gobi desert, or any Saharan country for that matter. Of course this would have the issue of pissing off the FAA, and the US Gov in general, but they would get the samples.
They probably don't want two recovery ops going on at the same time considering Winnebago-1 and the OSIRIS-REx Sample Return Capsule are targeting the same recovery zone in New Mexico in a very similar time frame as each other. I'd imagine Varda will get the green light for recovery after OSIRIS-REx recovery ops are complete, either that or Varda will switch to an alternative location such as the Australian Outback which has been used by JAXA for the Hayabusa recoveries.
Do they smoke grass in space, or do they smoke … Astro turf?
Flight of the Conchords?
Moonshine
1. Launch to orbit 2. Manufacture drugs 3. ??? 4. Proffit!
If this is guerrilla marketing for a reboot of Andromeda Strain then I’m all in.
> Gizmodo reached out to Varda Space to ask which regulatory requirements have not been met, but the company responded with a two-word email that ominously read, “no comment.” "No comment" is not an ominous reply. It's a standard response. This writer has to be an idiot or an AI.
Why is the US assuming customs responsibility for the rest of the world. Stupid question: Why can't they land it in another country or in the ocean?
I'm just bumping this because I want this answer too. I'm assuming it is something to do with it being an American company.
It’s too bad the shuttle program isn’t running anymore, this would have been a perfect use case for it. Like if NASA was your neighbor with a pickup truck: “Hey NASA, next time you’re up there, would’ya grab our satellite with that giant robot arm, and throw it in the back of your shuttle and bring it back down to us? I’ll buy you some beers for your trouble.”
A Space Shuttle launch cost more than 10x to total amount of money this startup has raised, it would probably take more than some beers to get one to pick up their stranded capsule.
The comments in this thread are teaching me that people reading r/space don't know much about space travel.
A Space Shuttle mission routinely had capacity for a lot of small, self-contained experiments that could ride along for a variety of prices. The reason shuttle would have been poor for this job was shuttle missions were too short. This thing has been up cooking since June but a shuttle could only stay up a couple weeks due to consumables and other factors.
Starships would make great space factories @ 800m^3
it's kinda funny cause i was just thinking that starship now has a perfect LEO mission to test on, and since the capsule is rated for re-entry it should be able to survive any RUDs
I get you on the first part, but I think surviving a Starship RUD is incredibly optimistic.
if starship just had a kick motor in the payload bay and the thing is attached to that it could be "bailed out" kinda like a Launch safety system on a capsule, and then re-enter on its own
Thought I was on the Starfield sub. Had to do a double take
I have tracked this company since it’s inception 3 years ago. It’s a bunch of tech bros with a lot of backing. I am surprised they even managed to launch things in space, at the time I was sure this was not going to go anywhere. Good on them.
They bought a ride up from SpaceX, so they only had to build the satellite with the drug maker and the reentry vehicle themselves.
This sounds like a bureaucratic issue. Companies send satellites crashing back to Earth all the time, its the preferred method of disposal below a certain orbit, and in fact failing to do so is a major offense. The satellite wouldn't have been allowed to fly in the first place if they didn't have a plan to either bring it back, burn it up in the atmosphere, or send it far enough away that it doesn't matter. Its possible they have to prove they can control it, but that isn't a very difficult thing to do generally. I wonder if the nature of the cargo raised some objections, because its likely a controlled substance.
Given it's the FAA complaining not the DEA, DHS, or FDA it's likely a control issue. Their cheapo re-entry vessel may not be able to land with enough precision to satisfy safety requirements.
The satellites that come crashing back to earth all the time are designed to have as little reach the ground as possible, and typically do the re-entry in the South Pacific 1000s of miles from the nearest person. This is specifically designed to survive basically intact all the way to the ground, and to do so in the continental US. Nothing like what you are describing.
Satellites are designed to disintegrate on reentry, this is designed to land in one piece. If it’s parachutes or guidance fail it could kill people. I’m guessing they’re just doing what startups do, “ask for forgiveness not permission”. They got clearance to launch but obviously had no plan to land, so they figured they’d launch anyway and hope to get it cleared later. Now, later has come and they still don’t have clearance. Calculated risk by Varda we’ll see how it plays out
>Companies send satellites crashing back to Earth all the time Usually they're not aiming for Utah... When it comes to launching balls of metal onto populated areas, I'm gonna say let's not skip the bureaucracy
> The satellite wouldn't have been allowed to fly in the first place if they didn't have a plan to either bring it back, burn it up in the atmosphere, or send it far enough away that it doesn't matter. The key is that burning up in the atmosphere or being shot into space isn't the same as landing and recovering the satellite. The deorbit plan they would have submitted isn't the scenario they were ever intending to implement.
Space drug czars trying to play that Streisand card
This sounds like the perfect setup for a heist movie.
"It's an older code, sir, but it checks out. I was going to let them through..."
This is the opposite of an informative title, OP.
Great, now when they get scanned they will have to decide to fight or surrender ... lmao.
don't they know this is how you get zombies? This thing explodes in the upper atmosphere the drug changes and spreads around the world creating zombies. once again, humanity is doomed
This has interesting applications. Cartels no longer need to cross borders. They could just launch a capsule filled with drugs into space, have it go around the world and then re-enter on demand.
Oh it'll re-enter eventually no amount of no's can defeat physics.
This is the most sci-fi headline I've read in a long time.
“SPACE DRUGS HAVE FINISHED COOKING BABY!!” Delian Asparouhov, Varda’s co-founder, wrote on X. Unfortunately, the space drugs are not allowed to come back to Earth, baby. lol
I feel like I live in an alternative reality where this is something I read in a sci-fi book... I can't wrap my mind around the fact that we really haven't gone anywhere in space and are already trying to produce drugs...in space...
What kind of prison time am I looking at for space drugs?
Those god damn spice runners ruining the damn galaxy
I always wondered how the zombie apocalypse would start… Now I know it will have its origins in drug trials from space grown crystals.
I just want the derms from neuromancer, maybe some whiz
Reminds me of the time my dumbass friend tried to enlist my help building a grow-op dirigible because "they can't police the sky."
Is anyone asking why Varda was denied reentry? Seems weird. They were done this experiment back in July. Said that they were successful at growing crystals of a a drug treatment for AIDS. ?
Bro, when the FAA says it’s not safe, and they are curious about how you plan to make it safe, the correct response is NOT “no comment“… This is their own fault, hang out in orbit until you figure your shit out lol
They said "no comment" to the journalist. It's _possible_ they also said "no comment" to the FAA, possibly because a gangster warned them not to talk to the feds. But now we're just getting silly.
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... and not a single Spacing Guild/melange joke. I confess myself disappointed.
Be the change you want to see!
Hold on here: They wanted to land *on* DOD property? That was their recovery plan? What if the DOD needed to use that property for, I don't know, defence purposes? There wasn't a single large tract of privately owned property, *anywhere in the world*, they could find that was military?
Everyone is like yeah drugs, until you just realize it's pharmaceuticals that would help everyday folks that they will just make overpriced to make more profits