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Writer's picturesteven buck

A Statement about Pythom's Recent Test

As of writing this (4/11) a video from Pythom, a small launch company wanting to compete with Rocket Lab and SpaceX, showed several egregious safety issues that unfortunately show the worst in the space industry.


https://vimeo.com/690376951?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=127457841 This is the video in question. From the moment they begin lifting their test vehicle the safety issues begin. The first is the person standing underneath the vehicle while lifting with no visible system to prevent it from falling. While lifting it is then shown that they simply tied it to a truck and they are just pulling it, they are so lucky that the truck didn't lose traction or that it didn't tip the other direction after being lifted. Also, while lifting you can see the support legs visibly bending under it's own weight, if they did any form of analysis they should have seen this before hand and easily fixed it.


After the engine is turned on, you can see several people downwind from the vehicle only about 100 feet away. Even if they were only testing a large cold gas system this is nowhere near far enough to be safe, which becomes evident when they have to run from the cloud the engine produces. At first this looks like dust, until the engine cuts off and a red cloud is visible. This red cloud is Red Fuming Nitric Acid (RFNA), this is extremely toxic and requires personnel to be fully covered with supplied air to work anywhere near it.


Pythom responding to industry professionals by basically saying that they know better because people died on un-guided trips that the owners led to Everest and the poles, and that we don't want small space companies to succeed.


This couldn't be further from the truth. We simply don't want people to die doing what we love because they couldn't be bothered to take a moment and consider what would happen if something goes wrong? All these issues could have been easily prevented by moving the test stand upwind and further away, using a proper lifting system, and ensuring people stay away from the vehicle while lifting.


They do not speak for us, they do not represent us, and they need to do better.

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