Still, they have some interesting tech and appear to be really driven to become a serious player and I wish them well.
There's RocketLab, the up-n-comer.
There's Astra, sort of a launcher with all the wrong priorities.
But there's also ... Pythom ... which is really something else.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/pythom-space-tests-i...
I predict a Darwin award at some point of these people don't get with the program - several programs, in fact.
Also: afterwards the legs appear to have bent quite a bit, and you have to wonder about what kind of stresses that put on the attachment points.
At least they're lucky, you can't deny them that.
What gets me though: they can design and build a rocket motor but get a whole pile of very basic stuff utterly wrong. How is that even possible?
Speaking of which. How are they funded?
https://pythom.com/ps/Pythom-500k-Seed-Round-Closed-2020-03-...
Back when I was a barely supervised teenage boy we tried that strategy of pulling a 20+ foot structure upright with a truck, and managed to limit injuries one participant getting a bad rope burn. It seemed sketchy even to us, I can't guess at the thought process that lead to a bunch of grown literal rocket scientists trying it.
To be honest I'm jealous that they're still at it. You think they're hiring?
Think of the lawsuits...
That reminded our ROTC training on handling SCUD missiles which also had nitric acid as oxidizer - even for training without actual fuel/oxidizer we had to don the protection suits :) Anyway, looking at those guys i think i definitely can go ahead with my SpaceX competitor rocket project.
They are launching humans to sub-orbital space. They have working Ox-rich engine and such an engine has never before been built in the US. They are not SpaceX level but such a project is quite a complex under-taking.
They are a contractor for ULA and the whole military is depending on them. This is pretty serious business.
Sub-orbital launches are simply not useful, and a new type of engine only makes sense if it gives you a shorter path to the finish or a capability that you otherwise would not have. As for the military depending on them: SpaceX has been awarded a whole pile of contracts and the only thing that BO has going for it is to be able to ride the gravy train without delivering anything so far except for some research that may one day be useful.
Instead of competing in the marketplace it seems BO is better at playing politics and competing in the courts, but the latter they've lost and the politicians will sooner or later want deliverables and without those the gravy train will sooner or later roll to a halt. Note that the engine program is now 4 years behind schedule and not a single BE-4 has flown. Even BO admits that the engine has problems, which makes me wonder if it will ever fly with the present design, and if they have to go back to the drawing board you can add a couple of years more worth of delays.
Meanwhile, SpaceX launches a payload to orbit on average every 8 days for 2022 (once every 12 days in 2021), the amount of experience they are gaining alone is going to add up to a sizeable barrier.
And what a great video by the way.
I could see an argument for that given the time/resources invested compared to the results but ULA's future and a large fraction of Project Kupier's planned launches are tied to the success of the BE-4 so they do have immediate ambitions beyond suborbital tourist hops.
I also really enjoy their design sense, really cool to see a carbon-fiber rocket with a sense of style.