SpaceX founding member and rocket engineer Tom Mueller retires

-

-Advertisement-

Tom Mueller, one of the 2 founding employees of SpaceX and the brain behind the space exploration company’s rocket engines has announced his retirement today. He posted the retirement tweet and tagged CEO Elon Musk to which Musk replied with an appreciation for his services to the company.

Mueller is an unsung hero behind the success of SpaceX, the Draco and different iterations of the Merlin engines are his brainchild. His story of becoming the founder of SpaceX from a family background of loggers and logging truck drivers is a very interesting one. But he had the drive to invent and innovate in the field of engineering, especially developing large engines with huge thrusting power.

Tom Mueller at SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, California.
Tom Mueller with his creations (variants of Merlin engines) at the SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, California.
Tesla Accessories by EVANNEX.
– Sponsored –

He graduated as a Mechanical Engineer from the University of Idaho in 1985, he explains that developing real rocket engines at SpaceX was the most daunting task of his life, he shared this experience in the following words:

When we formed SpaceX in 2002, I found myself with the most daunting engineering task of my life. As the vice president of propulsion, I had the responsibility of developing the Merlin rocket engine from a clean sheet. Booster class rocket engines are such an intense engineering problem that many believed that only governments could develop them. They have the highest energy density of any machine developed by man, releasing billions of watts of thermal energy in a small high-pressure combustion chamber. Everything I learned in engineering applied: Fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, chemistry, dynamics and vibration, stress and strain, materials and metallurgy, electrical systems, heat transfer and mechanical design.

Tom Mueller’s article on University of Idaho website.

In the later years of his career at SpaceX, he worked as the company’s Propulsion Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and for the last two years, he served as a part-time Senior Advisor to SpaceX.

Earlier this year, he shared several memories of how he started working on an amateur rocket in a friend’s garage in 1992. This experimental rocket, later on, became the basis for the name of SpaceX’s Big Falcon Rocket (BFR).

At 57, we might not have seen all that Mueller has to offer with the vast engineering knowledge and experience he has acquired. Let’s see what his next venture is in the field of rockets, space, and engines, stay tuned.

Follow us on: Google News | RSS Feed | Flipboard.

Iqtidar Ali
Iqtidar Alihttp://www.teslaoracle.com
Iqtidar has been writing about Tesla, Elon Musk, and EVs for more than 3 years on XAutoWorld.com, many of his articles have been republished on CleanTechnica and InsideEVs, maintains a healthy relationship with the Tesla community across the Social Media sphere. You can reach him on Twitter @IqtidarAlii

Latest News

FSD Beta 11.4.7.2 (2023.27.6) gets mostly positive reviews from testers, Tesla adds a new Data Sharing agreement prompt in the update

Tesla started rolling out the new FSD Beta update version 11.4.7.2 (firmware build 2023.27.6) yesterday. According to an initial...

Tesla shares Optimus robot’s AI progress, Elon Musk pledges to make it safer with convenient switch-off mechanisms

Tesla (TSLA) shared the development progress of its humanoid robot Optimus on Sunday. In a short video, Tesla showcased...

Tesla reopens Giga Texas with Master Candidate Cybertrucks and Model Y production restart

Multiple developments took place today at Tesla's Gigafactory in Austin, Texas. After almost a 1 month closure for upgrades,...

Tesla leads the auto industry by a mile with the launch of its 50,000th Supercharger in Ultra Red

Tesla (TSLA) has written a new chapter of the automotive industry in the last 11 years with its Supercharger...
- Advertisement -

Starship, OLM, and Mechazilla get thousands of upgrades in preparation for the 2nd orbital flight test, FAA holds approval, Starbase updates

SpaceX shared the details of the upgrades that have been made on the road to Starship's next orbital flight...

Starbase update: SpaceX conducts 2nd static fire test on Booster 9, Starship factory expands, Mid Bay demolished, more

Starbase, Texas: SpaceX has been intensely busy in preparation for the next Starship orbital flight since the 1st static...

Starship Booster 9 static fire served as a test bed for the new OLM water deluge system

SpaceX performed a static fire test on its Starship Super Heavy Booster 9 rocket yesterday. This test was performed...

Tesla Tips & Tricks

Here’s how to clean jeans stains from white seats of your Tesla Model S, 3, X, or Y

The white interior is the most popular option among...

SpaceX enthusiast designs a 1:110 scale LEGO Starship

A NASA/SpaceX enthusiast who goes by the name of...

Popular Stories

- Advertisement -

You might also likeRELATED
Recommended for You