Exciting personal space law news! In 2018 a whistleblower told me about a new satellite thruster that used mercury, the poisonous liquid metal, as a propellant, and that it would inevitably fall back to earth when used, thus beginning my Space Lawyer arc
— Kevin H Bell ???? (@KevinHBell) March 28, 2022
Kevin Bell, space lawyer, got word from a whistleblower that a company planned on making satellites that use mercury as a propellent. Thanks to their efforts a global rainstorm of mercury was avoided.
They took their concerns to the American government and were confronted by a lot of departments denying it was their responsibility. So they went further and got the United Nations to ban the use of the deadly metal in orbit!
“The Minamata Convention on Mercury seeks to eliminate all mercury uses where technically-achievable non-mercury alternatives are available,” said Elena Lymberidi-Settimo, ZMWG Coordinator at the European Environmental Bureau. “In the case of satellite propulsion systems, mercury-free alternatives have been available and used for decades.”