by A Canadian town of 13,000 wants a rocket launch to stop testing its engines there.
Residents of Trent Hills, an Ontario town about two hours east of Toronto, are asking the privately funded rocket company SpaceRyde to stop engine testing in the area, and the municipality has sought legal advice to bring about that effect, according to local reports .
“The sound can be heard for many miles and startles anyone in the immediate area. Horses can bolt and domestic animals suffer. Wildlife has been disturbed,” a report claims (opens in new tab) n Change.org that had been signed by more than 700 people as of Tuesday (Nov. 8).
“People’s safety is at risk as the terrifying noise can cause anyone riding, cycling, riding a motorbike, working on a ladder or rooftop to momentarily lose concentration as they process the disturbing sound,” the report added.
SpaceRyde chief marketing officer Jen Scholten declined to comment on the report and reports when asked by Space.com on Monday (Nov. 7). “A lot has happened since his post,” Scholten said, but did not elaborate.
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In early October, the Town of Trent Hills referred the situation to legal counsel, asking “the owner and occupier of the site [for] a commitment to voluntarily stop rocket engine testing at the site,” local newspaper Trent Hills Now (opens in new tab) He wrote.
The council claims SpaceRyde failed to disclose its plans to test the engine in its planning application to set up a facility at the site, which is close to two main county roads. The allegations have not been proven in court, SpaceRyde said in reports (opens in new tab) that the rocket engine test was covered by an accessory use of the property.
In a comment on Trent Hills Now (opens in new tab) In September, SpaceRyde co-founder Sohrab Haghighat noted that the 100-decibel noise from the engine test is brief, infrequent and equivalent to a large truck briefly revving its engine on a road.
SpaceRyde always notifies local residents before tests take place, Haghighat said, adding that one local told him the noise “is the sound of progress. It’s the sound of Canada one day going into space (with) its own rocket .”
SpaceRyde opened a 25,000-square-foot (2,300-square-meter) facility in Concord in June and invited media as well as Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. The privately funded company has about 30 employees, according to media reports, and was founded in 2018. Its goal is to create a three-stage rocket that would fly into the stratosphere in a balloon before firing its engines.
The city’s dispute with SpaceRyde comes as Canada rapidly expands its rocket industry. Canada’s government is considering a spaceport in Nova Scotia that aims to launch suborbital launches next year. Several companies in the Toronto area are ramping up rocket production after years or decades of making parts for American companies.
The small space industry in Canada is also growing as larger projects in the community grow, such as the Canadian Space Agency’s commitment to put astronauts and hardware on lunar missions like NASA’s Artemis 2, which aims to send humans on a trip around the Moon. 2024.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Because I’m taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) the Facebook (opens in new tab).
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