Tom Mueller A lumberjack who aimed for the stars.

He is a technologist and visionary who grew up and spent much of his childhood in Idaho, a city where its largest workforce was in the lumber industry, so there was little chance that a brilliant mind would emerge from this place. This without wanting to discredit anyone. Like Elon Musk from a young age, she was passionate about rockets and space, several decades later, both would share their passion and then revolutionize the industry that is known to this day.

From a young age he learned discipline and hard work since his father was a woodcutter who had all the intentions that his son would follow in his footsteps and take over the reins of the family business,
Mueller was an extraordinary boy who while his friends were thinking and discussing the best way to cut down a tree he was pointing towards the stars much higher than any great tree.

Flashes of Genius

Since he was little he demonstrated his mechanical skills since one day he completely disassembled his father's lawn mower. When he saw what the boy had done, he was greatly disgusted and what he never imagined was that the boy would reassemble the y make it work perfectly.
While there in high school Mueller remembers and gives credit to his math teacher who would give him one of the best advice in his life, contrary to what his guidance teacher did who seeing that the boy was a genius in terms of mechanics He suggested that he study mechanical engineering and become an aircraft mechanic.
At the same time, his math teacher asked him a great question, do you want to be an aircraft mechanic or do you want to be the one who builds them? This would give a 180 ° turn to his vision and it is where later they decide to leave Idaho for California.

A long way

He found a job at Thursday Aircraft founded a filmmaker mogul, later on he would do this company to train in the ranks of TRW where he worked in the development of engines for liquid combustion rocket. In 2002 he was working on a rocket to show it and see it fly in an amateur club to which he was a member, it was not at all small since it weighed about 30 kilos and had a thrust of 58 kilonewtons that he would later test and catapult him, making him a legend among clubs and rocket fans.
In that same year, thanks to a member of this Club, I met Elon Musk.

It's time to reach the stars

This South African named Elon Musk after meeting Mueller video and his career through all these companies and his passion for rocket engines asked him "Do you dare to build something bigger? Mueller without thinking collects his belongings and begins to work at Space X.

Remember that phrase that behind a successful man there is a person who accompanies him because this is the case of Mueller and Musk and vice versa. It is here that the best of the continents come together to begin bringing one of the most successful private aerospace companies of all time to life. Later Mueller would say in one of his interviews that TRW was a great company and where to acquire not only he achieved but experiences but that he had a small department of propulsion engines, and that in Space X he literally felt like a king due to the size of the vehicles. projects and the large budget available. For more than 12 years he assumed senior positions in the company and it was not until 2014 that he assumed to be the company's chief technology officer.

Always with your feet on the ground

Mueller repeatedly mentioned that when Space X was founded there were a handful of people who few knew about rockets going through mistakes that almost bankrupted this company and to be exact there were three failed launches which they had, and they recognized that only They had a budget for a last release and luckily it worked, it was a success.
Undoubtedly Mueller leaves an indelible mark in his passage through Space X since in November 2020 he signed his departure from the successful company.
These two men broke the cycle in which tens of millions of dollars were thrown away since in past times missions to space only used these one way rockets and even when the shuttle was invented, it needed large and heavy rockets which they consumed a large amount of budget. What began as a hobby and passion for a series when they were both very young called "star trek" decades later would bear excellent fruit as it served as inspiration for many of the things they did.

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