Winchell Chung ⚛🚀

Star map and Atomic Rocket geek. The hard-science SF writer's tech support. The website is at
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/

Refugee from the decline and fall of Google Plus.

In my long and misspent youth I did the artwork for various TTWG such as Ogre, WarpWar, GEV and such.

Fans are Slans

Website: https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/

Public Key

npub19tt5ynnw7gqyez8tcvrlslh4ar96z2gzkxqmwfl3hrvwacddlqgqu96nnr

NIP-05 Address

nyrath_at_spacey.space@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsz446zfeh0yqzv3r4uxplc0m673jap9yptrqdhylcm3k8wuxklsyqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds778h6y

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub19tt5ynnw7gqyez8tcvrlslh4ar96z2gzkxqmwfl3hrvwacddlqgqu96nnr

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Last Notes

2026-04-20 10:45:08 UTC

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The airpark was given the grandiose name of Infinity One Oklahoma Spaceport on April 14, 2026
Its major assets are an extravagantly large runway, and a location remote from *anything* with plenty of room for crash landings.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/157/1

2026-04-20 10:41:13 UTC

Back in the 1960s my father was in USAF SAC and was stationed at Clinton-Sherman AFB. We lived in a nearby sleepy little town.
At the end of the decade SAC decided to close Clinton-Sherman, and my father was transferred to Loring AFB, and my family moved to a nearby frozen sleepy little town.
In a desperate effort to monetize the abandoned base, the state of Oklahoma tried to make it a spaceport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Space_Industry_Development_Authority
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/116/436/609/702/812/909/original/b4d8abd7d4ee08e0.jpg

2026-04-17 11:34:29 UTC

When a place gets crowded enough to require ID’s, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
-Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein

2026-04-12 10:55:55 UTC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP1mVLeRG5I

2026-04-11 11:00:17 UTC

US Navy has four aging Ohio-class guided-missile submarines approach their mandatory retirement dates.
The problem is that Navy shipbuilding capacity has diminished over the years, and the vital Ohio submarines cannot be replaced in a timely manner.
https://dailygalaxy.com/2026/04/us-navy-2080-tomahawk-loss-ohio-class-submarine/

2026-04-10 00:05:11 UTC

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The only plumber that needs a blaster. In case there is a Dianoga lurking in the septic tank.

2026-04-09 11:15:15 UTC

https://gizmodo.com/what-is-going-on-with-the-artemis-2-toilet-20007

2026-04-08 11:24:21 UTC

NASA photos
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/

2026-04-06 19:14:38 UTC

I was channel surfing and ran across one of my favorite space movies.
Gee, I wonder why they decided to air this movie right about now...
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/116/359/347/613/999/819/original/a5dd63375a97108e.png

2026-04-01 10:32:47 UTC

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/starlink-satellite-breaks-apart-into-tens-of-objects-spacex-confirms-anomaly

2026-03-31 11:21:20 UTC

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/after-16-years-and-8-billion-the-militarys-new-gps-software-still-doesnt-work/

2026-03-27 10:51:10 UTC

https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/116/300/752/807/440/654/original/9c1466bb09982987.jpg

2026-02-14 12:15:12 UTC

Star Trek fans may be interested in this story. It is called "Thou Good And Faithful" by John Loxmith (John Brunner) written 1953.
It is about an exploration star ship encountering a planet inhabited by robots. The ship, crew, and story plot are very Star Trek flavored. The officers have "lapel speakers" that are similar to the com-badges used in Star Trek.
https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v51n01_1953-03_starhome/page/n2/mode/1up
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/116/068/925/075/874/744/original/dec7dead6cef46fd.jpg

2026-02-13 23:53:12 UTC

I just saw on Turner Classics an old favorite of mine: The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. An amazing performance by Tony Randall.
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/116/066/011/064/558/325/original/4020b1c1c3be95e6.png

2025-12-31 12:08:22 UTC

https://www.computerworld.com/article/4110681/foreign-tech-workers-are-avoiding-travel-to-the-us.html

2025-11-09 13:35:13 UTC

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I read Awol of Ulm back in the day, in an anthology edited by Isaac Asimov called Before The Golden Age. Half of the colored beams are for combat, with various deadly effects. The others are for defense, neutralizing the combat beams.

2025-11-07 22:26:17 UTC

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I have no idea. Obviously Ukraine is going to use whatever is cost effective. I have heard that Ukraine is training human teams of drone pilots.

2025-11-07 20:17:16 UTC

Ukraine is advancing military drone technology by leaps and bounds.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-robot-rescues-soldier-trapped-russian-occupied-territory-ground-drone

2025-11-03 11:40:13 UTC

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2025/10/31/nasas-orion-space-capsule-is-flaming-garbage/

2025-10-05 22:08:25 UTC

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You want a location that is as close to the equator as possible.
Secondly you want it on the east coast of a continent with a long stretch of uninhabited ocean.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/surfaceorbit.php#russianinclination

2025-10-04 21:22:02 UTC

Is it just me, or does this seem like a real bad idea? Sounds like the start of a "Terminator" movie.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7p1lzvxjro

2025-09-16 00:50:04 UTC

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Yes, I know about High Frontier. I helped play test a couple of early versions. It is one of the most scientifically accurate space games ever.
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/115/211/222/050/330/839/original/acde5bfced5c00da.jpg
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/115/211/223/220/703/658/original/ac9b66518583ed66.jpg
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/115/211/224/159/369/257/original/1d9343fe6b8194df.jpg

2025-09-15 15:43:22 UTC

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Which explains the "Nuclear Lightbulb " concept.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist2.php#id--Nuclear_Thermal--Gas_Core--Closed_Cycle
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/115/209/075/603/038/111/original/02665e573dd28b04.jpg
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/115/209/075/621/958/437/original/7b0c3b07d10ad241.jpg
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/115/209/076/371/639/759/original/5cf6328009de351e.jpg

2025-09-15 11:31:03 UTC

Centrifugal nuclear thermal rocket
This is an old idea, but I am glad someone is looking into it. Specific impulse up to 1,800 sec with hydrogen propellant.
https://gizmodo.com/new-nuclear-rocket-concept-could-slash-mars-travel-time-in-half-2000658084

2025-09-11 23:23:22 UTC

People of Mastodon, please help.
I am trying to remember the name of a short lived TV show in the 1960s-1970s.
There was a mysterious artifact (maybe from aliens, had a Chariots of the Gods feel) which was a metal plate split into six or eight equal parts. Protagonists were looking for all the pieces. They find an elderly native American who has one.
But an evil super villain is trying to obtain all the pieces, to do something evil.
Does this sound familiar?

2025-08-04 11:22:30 UTC

Article implies that hexanitrogen is the perfect rocket fuel. Except later on it admits that unless it is cooled in liquid nitrogen, it detonates at the clank of a falling molecule.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2025/06/27/perfect-rocket-fuel-no-fires-no-chemicals-just-energy-49569

2025-06-22 17:28:34 UTC

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The disjointed story is about how one fine day Jupiter's Great Red Spot decided to go walkies and poison everyone on Earth.

2025-05-24 12:31:53 UTC

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There are cases where cities have been hit by earthquakes. The bamboo scaffolding just sways a little bit while all the metal scaffolding collapses.

2025-05-24 12:28:52 UTC

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A couple of scifi writers have suggested that bamboo is an important resource for space colonies.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/stellarcolony.php#bamboo

2025-05-21 13:48:25 UTC

Miniature wargame set up recreating The Battle of Five Armies from The Hobbit
https://bsky.app/profile/mogsymakes.bsky.social/post/3lplfh6q4rk2j
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/114/546/134/323/582/864/original/12ba9602de789082.jpg

2025-04-26 15:02:24 UTC

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The yellow thing is an alien working on the construction of the famous Sector General interstellar hospital space station.

2025-04-23 00:36:13 UTC

https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/114/384/472/092/203/222/original/e7d5a115dab16fb7.jpg

2025-04-13 18:12:55 UTC

Musk calls Trump’s looming NASA cuts ‘troubling’.
(Elon Musk’s SpaceX is one of the agency’s largest contractors)
In other words he never thought the leopard would eat *his* face.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/11/elon-musk-nasa-trump-cuts-00008187

2025-02-17 12:56:29 UTC

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This was the "battleship" Orion.
500 twenty-megaton city-killer warheads, 5-inch Naval cannon turrets, six hypersonic landing boats, and several hundred of the dreaded Casaba Howitzer weapons — which are basically ray guns that shoot nuclear flame (the technical term is "nuclear shaped charge").
Scared the poo out of President Kennedy, who promptly canceled the Orion program.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewarshipart.php#orionbattleship

2025-02-16 21:49:00 UTC

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This one. On page 295
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/114/015/766/762/985/527/original/4e1dafb1431337c7.jpg

2025-02-16 20:28:03 UTC

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Yes, the third edition of the Orion book has the long lost photo of the nightmare Orion that scared President Kennedy into shutting down the entire project.

2025-01-25 15:05:52 UTC

https://scitechdaily.com/unexpected-findings-scientists-reveal-the-milky-way-is-a-cosmic-outlier/

2025-01-12 01:51:29 UTC

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Only thing we care about? Oh, I dunno. The cover story by Poul Anderson has one of the most heart wrenching endings of any of his stories.
Spoilers in link
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/alientech.php#helpinghand

2025-01-12 01:46:35 UTC

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Well, that is because one of the biggest cheerleaders of Dianetics was John W. Campbell jr, who just so happened to be the editor for Astounding magazine.

2025-01-11 02:30:11 UTC

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Kimball Kinnison in the grey leather uniform of a Lensman, gun hand near his DeLameter ray blaster.

2025-01-07 17:05:50 UTC

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I was puzzled as well. A wild guess is "fan service"
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/113/788/161/097/405/037/original/6605f37175b21bc4.jpg

2025-01-07 15:19:34 UTC

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Ah! This issue has Arthur C. Clarke's short story "Second Dawn", one of my favorites!

2025-01-05 02:22:06 UTC

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Yes, the scene is pretty much as described in "Kings Who Die". Except the astronaut is also radio broadcasting S. O. S.

2025-01-05 02:14:18 UTC

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Alas! I have noticed that pretty much all the scifi magazines in the internet archive are missing any Poul Anderson story they contained.
"Kings Who Die" can be found in these anthologies
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41237

2024-12-31 16:23:10 UTC

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The chem teacher gently eased the deadly tube full of nitrogen tri iodide out of my father's pocket.
They carefully took it to the rifle range, and put it on a bolder. Then from long range they shot the tube.
The tube went up in a massive explosion. And the bolder split in two.
If it wasn't for that quick thinking teacher my father would not have survived. And I never would have existed.
4/end

2024-12-31 16:16:52 UTC

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On the theory that "bigger is better", my father made an entire test tube full of the stuff and put it in his pocket. Remember that the slightest jolt will make it explode.
Luckily the chemistry teacher noticed the tube. When he found out what was inside, he almost had a heart attack.
He commanded my father to freeze, don't move a muscle.
3/

2024-12-31 16:11:58 UTC

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My father told me about that stuff. When my father was in high school he learned how to make it. To teenagers, it was the hight of hilarity to make a small amount, strain it out of solution with filter paper, lay the paper across a rat path, and wait for it to dry. He was living in Hilo Hawaii at the time, rats were *everywhere*.
2/

2024-12-31 16:04:13 UTC

It is a wonder i survived my childhood.
I found Robert Heinlein and other scifi novels most educational.
In Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold, he describes how to make "ersatz dynamite" using innocuous household chemicals: tincture of iodine and washing ammonia. Described as being harmless when wet but when dry a feather landing on it will make it explode.
When I was much older I figured out that the blasted stuff was the insanely dangerous chemical nitrogen tri-iodide
1/

2024-12-23 14:22:50 UTC

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What really frightens me is Heinlein's description of Nehemiah Scudder in the afterward to his Revolt In 2100...

2024-12-23 14:09:01 UTC

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Agreed.
I was born in the late 1950s and read a lot of science fiction while growing up. Stuff like Nineteen Eighty Four, Brave New World, A Clockwork Orange, The Marching Morons, and John Brunner's Club of Rome Quartet.
So my entire life has been watching the world go through a slow motion disaster as each of those novels became true. 🤦‍♂️
I am waiting with dread for the global spread of Star Trek's Eugenics Wars.

2024-12-21 14:33:25 UTC

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Delta-V tree maps
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/appmissiontable.php#deltav

2024-12-20 15:05:23 UTC

This looks interesting. It is a Gothic space game on Steam. What caught my eye is the space travel maps are delta-V tree maps.
https://www.bithellgames.com/the-banished-vault

2024-12-10 02:06:15 UTC

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It's a copy of the Boeing PARSEC III "counter-moon" space station concept (1960)
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/parsecs-1960.7039/
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/113/626/064/670/752/958/original/2cb07b52fffdbff8.jpg

2024-11-27 11:41:11 UTC

Take us out, Mr. Sulu.
The surviving cast of Star Trek the original series
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/113/554/727/486/218/863/original/390cad5fc16b049f.png

2024-11-20 11:08:25 UTC

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-starship-launches-banana-to-space-skips-giant-rocket-catch-on-6th-test-flight-video-photos

2024-11-19 18:39:20 UTC

A scifi writer's quick-n-dirty guide to science fictional "nuclear dampers"
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/nukedamper.php
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/113/511/068/447/620/995/original/15bdb1b629728e98.jpg

2024-11-17 12:50:55 UTC

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As you know, science popularizers of that time had the quaint notion that terrestrial planets ages were correlated with orbital distance from Sol.
So Mercury was a lifeless planet piping hot from the solar oven, Venus was a Dinosaur age swampy planet, Earth is modern planet, and Mars is an ancient dried up dying planet.

2024-11-16 10:50:28 UTC

https://futurism.com/nasa-sls-moon-rocket-might-be-canceled

2024-11-16 10:49:30 UTC

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-17/michael-bloomberg-nasa-s-artemis-moon-mission-is-a-colossal-waste

2024-10-31 11:13:06 UTC

Arecibo telescope collapsed because of a surprising engineering failure that inspections still should have spotted
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/arecibo-telescope-collapsed-because-of-a-surprising-engineering-failure-that-inspections-still-should-have-spotted/

2024-10-29 10:57:58 UTC

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/10/for-some-reason-nasa-is-treating-orions-heat-shield-problems-as-a-secret/

2024-10-28 22:43:11 UTC

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The opposite was in the Babylon 5 spin-off "Crusade".
The user interface for the weapons on the starship Excalibur was the gunner's feet and fists wired with motion sensors, used while standing in a panoramic 360 display, showing enemy starship locations.
Gunner used karate chops and kung-fu kicks on enemy ship image to aim and fire weapons...

2024-10-28 11:34:02 UTC

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/11/20800111/us-navy-uss-john-s-mccain-crash-ntsb-report-touchscreen-mechanical-controls

2024-10-22 11:57:29 UTC

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-air-defence-laser-engages-multiple-missiles-at-once

2024-10-03 19:01:24 UTC

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"No Buck Rogers = No Bucks"
The Great Unwashed are bored by a remote control drone crawling around on Mars. Even if it is nuclear powered and has a frickin' laser beam on its head.

2024-10-03 18:52:05 UTC

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Well the longer lived programs produce a usable product, with bonus points for NOT being years overdue. At least the SLS is not on cost-plus so Boeing has to eat the billions of dollars in cost over-runs.

2024-10-03 13:20:07 UTC

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/10/02/sls-is-still-a-national-disgrace/

2024-09-28 12:58:55 UTC

The 1940s magazine Nucleonics is now available on the Internet Archive. The ads are a hoot.
https://archive.org/details/pub_nucleonics?tab=collection&sort=date

2024-09-27 14:49:25 UTC

https://spacenews.com/university-researchers-flag-cislunar-space-debris-concerns/

2024-09-26 22:12:06 UTC

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/06/on-the-space-station-band-aid-fixes-for-systemic-problems/

2024-09-25 20:54:50 UTC

Minor planets, asteroids, comets and interplanetary dust within 30 au
https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.09540
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/113/200/181/238/387/024/original/113c6546bfc5c461.jpg

2024-09-25 19:12:14 UTC

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I think so. The short story ended up as a couple of chapters of the first Cities in Flight novel (They Shall Have Stars aka Year 2018! )

2024-09-25 14:45:14 UTC

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Apparently this is one of the short stories that James Blish assembled into his "Cities in Flight" series. This one was about the researching of the "anagathic" or immortality drugs.

2024-09-25 10:22:00 UTC

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Scott Lowther had proposedyjis in 2013
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/civmilitary.php#nukedef
https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/113/197/692/864/497/243/original/2d2cabd956aa6a20.jpg

2024-09-25 10:19:02 UTC

https://www.space.com/asteroid-nuclear-bomb-deflection-x-rays

2024-09-22 13:21:19 UTC

Oh Mastodon mass-mind, hear my plea! Yet another story ID request.
Main character's uncle dies, and leaves his house to MC. Uncle was a horder, house is packed with trash. But MC finds the unpublished manuscript of a table-top role playing game. Apparently players world-wide have been eagerly awaiting its release.
MC gets a room at the next gamer-con and advertises the MS, "serious offers only".
Hilarity ensues as people start killing each other to get the MS.
Sound familiar?

2024-09-20 18:40:08 UTC

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I suppose if the supernova kicked off rapid biological evolution all over the bubble at the same time, it would imply that interstellar explorers from Earth will find life on other worlds at an order of magnitude similar evolutionary development.
By which I mean animals instead of nothing but single celled organisms.

2024-09-20 14:18:32 UTC

https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.12307

2024-09-17 19:28:41 UTC

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It will have to be older old tech.
Maybe no pocket calculators, but slide rules will work just fine.
Certainly nothing that requires a connection to the internet for regular updates. Things like latest model automobiles and farm tractors.

2024-08-31 10:47:50 UTC

https://www.yahoo.com/news/boeing-execs-yelled-rage-nasa-141938892.html

2024-06-23 18:38:51 UTC

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https://cdn.masto.host/spaceyspace/media_attachments/files/112/667/388/842/141/427/original/48cf1d9afce7baac.jpg

2024-06-23 11:02:32 UTC

Chinese satellite launch showers hapless Chinese town with hypergolic nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine.
Such fun getting sprayed with explosive cancer.
https://spacenews.com/china-launches-sino-french-astrophysics-satellite-debris-falls-over-populated-area/