Ed,

Thanks for writing. Since there are many university rocket clubs, I cced DCHAS as other members may want to know about promoting safety to rocketry clubs.

I would say that like all other university safety issues one has to have many, many approaches rather than relying on only one or two "fire walls".

• As a club, UCLA Rocketry initially was 100% students. Now they have a dedicated faculty advisor paying close watch and a second faculty member involved who is a member of the campus-wide Chemical and Physical Safety Committee.
• The club has meetings with EH&S.
• The club has industrial connections to receive further guidance.
• The club is structured (see http://rocketproject.seas.ucla.edu/structure.html ) so that only advanced members are working with the LOx systems.
• New members take a course in rocketry. ( https://www.coursicle.com/ucla/courses/ENGR/96R/ )
• Safety training is also required of all club members.
• Distance, distance, distance. Launches are out in the Mojave desert.
• Static testing done at Reaction Research Society site established in 1943 ( https://www.rrs.org/facilities/ ).
• Restrictions on students involved in rocket fueling and being near a fueled rocket.
• Professional company provides LOx and does the filling.
• PPE as expected.
• Probably more, but I did not contact the faculty advisor.

As if LOx/kerosene was not bad enough, I believe they also use an explosive to deploy the parachute.

Best,

Craig

Craig A. Merlic

Professor of Chemistry, UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Executive Director,m UC Center for Laboratory Safety

http://cls.ucla.edu

Los Angeles, CA  90095-1569

Voice:  310-825-5466

Dear Prof. Merlic:

I agree that there has been increased activity in rocketry, likely due to the number of competitions and rise in sponsorships. The Safety Office at the Grainger College of Engineering have also been wrestling with this issue of at least one rocket club wishing to design and build a fuel/liquid oxygen rocket motor.   I hope you can let me know how you've been promoting safety to such rocketry clubs. Any advice or best practices would be welcome.  Thank you.

Eugene,

Thank you for doing this important service. As you write up your work note that rocket clubs on and off campus have increased dramatically in recent years. And indeed a number of teams are using liquid oxygen as the oxidizer.  I have been promoting safety to the UCLA rocketry club as they are using kerosene and liquid oxygen as the fuel system with a near term goal to reach 50,000.

http://rocketproject.seas.ucla.edu

Many student rocket clubs are sponsored by SpaceX and similar companies with quite substantial financial contributions (>$1M to UCLA's club). There are national associations and competitions:

https://www.soundingrocket.org

and the NASA Student Rocket Competition recently moved to Utah:

https://www.upr.org/post/nasa-student-rocket-competition-soars-utah-debut#stream/0

So you might consider a second focused report directed towards rocket clubs using liquid oxygen.

Best,

Craig

Craig A. Merlic

On Dec 14th, we will be conducting a third day of liquid oxygen spill testing at Utah Valley University. As reported earlier, liquid O2 testing has been conducted using methods developed by NASA in the early 1970's for the rocket program to determine material compatibility with LOx. The results of the testing resulted in safety rules for any liquid oxygen spill which the group felt might not be appropriate. An extensive literature review has been conducted to find any studies on this topic. Numerous oxygen explosions have been reported causing significant damage and injury, yet none appear to be directly related to a LOx spill. Why is that?

Our initial testing was conducted on July 27, 2021 and it resulted in findings that were contradictory to the existing protocols. As a result, a second test day was scheduled for Oct 21, 2021 to valid our methods and systems against those in the literature.

As this testing will have significant safety implications for a future HazMat response to a liquid oxygen spill, we have been careful not to release any information prematurely from either test dates. No information will be released before a detailed review of the additional testing on Dec 14th that will support or refute our early conclusions. We want to also ensure that our study and findings will withstand peer review since some are contradictory to existing protocols.

Many in the Safety and HazMat communities have been anxious to hear the results, please bear with me as we go through tedious process of reviewing and summarizing our test results and conclusions to ensure we are accurate and drawing the right conclusions

Eugene Ngai

Chemically Speaking LLC

www.chemicallyspeakingllc.com

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