| > Canada also has prior non-military liquid-fueled rocket engine development worthy of note: Non-military... for Canada only, not necessarily for it's allies and partners like China. The Canadian government is known to close it's eyes to dual intent technology transfers to China[0]. Good thing here in America there's ITAR[1] keeping these technologies from the hands of such bad actors. Canadian universities are also known to host and subsidize degrees for a significant number of Iranian nationals studying aerospace and nuclear engineering, for peaceful purposes I suppose. The Iranian drones currently used in Ukraine by the Russians seem to point toward technology transfers from Canada[2]. > Indeed. This marketing copy is spectacularly over-reaching. From the tittle and skimming the article I assumed they were claiming to be the first student-led group to reach the Karman Line, completely ignoring USC's record in 2019. Then, I realized they meant with a liquid fuel engine, thus making it a real first (albeit on a technicality). Then actually reading the article I realized the rocket doesn't actually exist and the funding for is hasn't even been secured. They did perform a static test for the engine, but that's not the same as a real flight by any stretch. Then the article gets really weird, with statements like: "With the ability to deliver 65 kilograms of scientific payload to over 135 kilometres in space, Starsailor is in the same class as United States suborbital launch companies' rocket-powered vehicles." Which sounds true except some of these rockets are actually flying. I guess if Starsailor does liftoff and performs to spec it'll be of the same class. Also why aren't they naming any of the companies? Fear of lawsuits? And then there's the name dropping at the end "The student-led team has scored an impressive number of wins since its inception in 2014, beating other universities such as Stanford, MIT, Caltech and McGill." I wonder why they went with that list of Universities (to get the right keyword in the article?). I mean, I don't think MIT or Caltech talks about Concordia in it's press releases... And no mention of USC who accomplished a similar goal? [0] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-chinese-mil... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_... [2] https://montrealgazette.com/news/canada/iranian-drones-canad... |