The Space-Based Drug Factory That Can’t Come Home

IEEE Spectrum ^ | 10:00 A.M. October 24, 2023 | Mark Harris

[jmcenanly]

Five hundred kilometers above the Earth, a small spacecraft is waiting patiently for permission to return home. The autonomous return capsule, made by startup Varda Space Industries, of Torrance, CA, was meant to have landed in the remote Utah desert early in September.

It would have been the first commercial space company to return a drug made in space to Earth, in this case a few grams of the HIV and hepatitis C antiviral ritonavir. Instead, the satellite, about the size of a large trash can and code-named Winnebago 1, continues to orbit the planet at nearly 30,000 kilometers per hour

[jmcenanly]

Wehrner Von Braun is often quoted as saying that when the weight of the paperwork was equivalent to the weight of the missile, the missile was ready to launch. He never had to deal with email or today's FAA.

[George J. Jetso]

Panic.

We’re all gonna die.

[Robe]

FAA needs to get out of the Space business. Have the Space Force handle it.

[jmcenanly]

Or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. At least they don't mind flying commercial.

[ealgeone]

OPERATION SCOOP

[pierrem15]

Grotesque example of overregulation, and the claims of extraterritoriality regarding an Australian reentry are laughable in light of maritime law.