The Brains Behind SpaceX Rockets and It's not Elon Musk

The Brains Behind SpaceX Rockets and It's not Elon Musk... === #spacezone #space #spacex #spacexrocket === The Brains Behind SpaceX Rockets and It's not Elon Musk... Elon Musk may be the public face of SpaceX, but there are many other incredibly talented people at the company who tend to live in his shadow. One of them is Tom Mueller. He might not be well-known, but he's a major reason SpaceX has become so successful. This is the story of SpaceX’s very first employee, the one who led the design, testing, and construction of the company’s rocket engines. “Did you ever see the movie October Sky? It's about NASA rocket scientist Homer Hickam. He grew up in West Virginia, and his dad was a coal miner. Basically, if you take that story and change mining to logging, it's the story of my life.” That’s how Thomas John Mueller describes his life. The Brains Behind SpaceX Rockets and It's not Elon Musk... Born in St. Maries, Idaho, Mueller grew up in a small logging town where his father, like many others, worked in the woods. His father hoped Tom would follow the same path, but Tom had different plans. From a young age, he was captivated by rocketry, building and launching Estes model rockets in his backyard. His curiosity and ingenuity only grew. At one point, he even built a rocket using parts from his father’s oxy-acetylene welder and discovered that adding water increased thrust. Still, life wasn’t easy. To pay for college, Mueller spent four grueling summers working as a logger. He later earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Idaho in 1985. After graduation, he turned down job offers in Idaho and Oregon, choosing instead to move to California to pursue a career in aerospace. The Brains Behind SpaceX Rockets and It's not Elon Musk... Shortly after arriving, he attended a job fair and landed a role in satellite design. His career quickly evolved, and he soon found himself developing liquid rocket engines—his lifelong passion. In 1992, he earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Loyola Marymount University’s Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineering. Before joining SpaceX, Tom Mueller spent 15 years at TRW Inc., a large conglomerate involved in aerospace, automotive, credit reporting, and electronics. He managed the propulsion and combustion products department, where he was responsible for developing liquid rocket engines. But Mueller felt that his ideas were getting lost within such a sprawling corporation, so he began building engines as a hobby. He attached his custom engines to airframes and launched them in the Mojave Desert. At the end of 2001, he began constructing a new liquid-fueled engine, first in his garage and later in a friend’s warehouse. After successfully test-firing the engine in 2002, Mueller became something of a legend in the amateur rocketry world. His work caught the attention of Elon Musk, who at the time had a big dream about going to Mars but very little practical knowledge about rockets, especially when it came to building engines.