Mueller's vanity impulse

The NYT has a piece about some Space-Exes racing their former employer to Mars. The piece seems skeptical and Zim is more so.

Impulse Space was founded by Thomas Mueller. He's best known as the chief developer of the Merlin engines. He left the Raptor in incapable hands although this may or may not be improving. Where the Raptor is designed for thrust - getting the SuperHeavy into orbit - Mueller aims more on the specific-impulse side, a long slow burn from Earth to Deimos.

That means launch-windows. NYT says: two and a half years from now. Here's Hop's ancient Hohmann spreadsheet; this one's more current. Yeah they're not making August. Next window should be October 2024. Not really 2.5 years - unless they know they need the extra propulsion to catch up.

The media skepticism revolves first around the choice of booster, which is Relativity's. Relativity haven't launched anything yet. I get not using a foreign company. I get not using SpaceX (I think). Also, ULA and Blue Origin keep having problems. But . . . RocketLab exist. Why not them? Too busy?

Assuming orbit (which Zim doesn't) I assume Mueller's engine can push a cargo between 1 and 1.5 AU. I am less sold on his lander, once at Mars. It's Insight but lighter. Also: no solar-panels.

Capitalism In Space, is Zim's categoire de blog. Seems more like Marketing.