17. Revving Up

Revving Up
SpaceX, 2002

Grow­ing up in the small log­ging vil­lage of Saint Maries, Ida­ho, Tom Mueller’s child­hood revolved around mod­el rock­ets and assist­ing his lum­ber­jack father. This ear­ly hands-on expe­ri­ence not only nur­tured his inter­est in rock­etry but also his prac­ti­cal skills in build­ing and inno­va­tion. Mueller, with his unyield­ing fas­ci­na­tion for sci­ence fic­tion and rock­ets, craft­ed his path from makeshift back­yard launch­es to engi­neer­ing stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ida­ho, work­ing as a log­ger to finance his edu­ca­tion.

Upon grad­u­a­tion, Mueller moved to Los Ange­les, eager to dive into the aero­space sec­tor. His spir­it­ed enthu­si­asm land­ed him a posi­tion at TRW, a firm renowned for its aero­space achieve­ments, includ­ing the engine that pow­ered the Apol­lo 11 moon land­ing. Mueller’s spare time was ded­i­cat­ed to the Mojave Desert, where he and oth­er rock­et enthu­si­asts, includ­ing his part­ner John Gar­vey, test­ed home­made rock­ets. Their col­lec­tive efforts led to the cre­ation of the world’s most potent ama­teur rock­et engine, a tes­ta­ment to Mueller’s inge­nu­ity and ambi­tion.

A piv­otal moment arrived in Jan­u­ary 2002 when Elon Musk, then an inter­net mil­lion­aire ven­tur­ing into space explo­ration, sought out Mueller for his rock­et exper­tise. Musk’s encounter with Mueller, han­dling an eighty-pound engine in a rent­ed ware­house, swift­ly trans­formed into a rapid-fire tech­ni­cal exchange. Musk was intrigued by Mueller’s expe­ri­ence, par­tic­u­lar­ly his work on TRW’s TR-106 engine with its stag­ger­ing 650,000 pounds of thrust, and Mueller’s abil­i­ty to con­cep­tu­al­ize and poten­tial­ly build a sim­i­lar engine inde­pen­dent­ly.

Their dis­cus­sions soon extend­ed to a vision that tran­scend­ed a mere project – found­ing SpaceX. Despite ini­tial hes­i­ta­tions about meet­ings on impor­tant occa­sions like the Super Bowl, Mueller was cap­ti­vat­ed by Musk’s ambi­tion to build a launch vehi­cle. Their col­lec­tive brain­storm­ing led to the ini­tial design plan for SpaceX’s first rock­et, focus­ing on using liq­uid oxy­gen and kerosene as pro­pel­lants. Musk offered Mueller the piv­otal role of head of propul­sion, urg­ing him to join in what was to become a ground­break­ing ven­ture in pri­vate space flight.

Mueller’s con­di­tions for join­ing – includ­ing a finan­cial safe­ty net – mir­rored his prac­ti­cal mind­set but also posi­tioned him more as a piv­otal employ­ee rather than a cofounder in Musk’s view. This dynam­ic under­scored a recur­ring theme in Musk’s ven­tures: a blend of inspi­ra­tion, per­spi­ra­tion, and risk con­sti­tut­ed the essence of true entre­pre­neur­ship and found­ing sta­tus.

Secur­ing Mueller’s exper­tise was a cor­ner­stone for Musk; it meant not only advanc­ing the engi­neer­ing prowess behind SpaceX but also sig­ni­fy­ing a tan­gi­ble step towards estab­lish­ing a ded­i­cat­ed team and facil­i­ty. Musk’s dri­ve led him to locate a ware­house in Los Ange­les, set­ting the stage for SpaceX to evolve from an ambi­tious idea into a tan­gi­ble enti­ty, lay­ing down its roots near the aero­space hub of LA air­port, ready to chal­lenge the fron­tiers of space explo­ration.