Chapter 36: Manufacturing: Tesla, 2010–2013

This chapter profiles Tom Mueller, SpaceX's first hire as head of propulsion, tracing his childhood passion for rockets and his January 2002 meeting with Musk that led to founding SpaceX's engineering team. It covers the early days of SpaceX's Hawthorne headquarters, the design philosophy of co-located teams, and the creation of the Falcon 1 rocket with its Merlin and Kestrel engines.

Tom Mueller grew up in rural Idaho as the son of a lumberjack, building model rockets from childhood and experimenting with homemade engines. He worked his way through the University of Idaho as a logger and moved to Los Angeles to pursue aerospace, landing a job at TRW where he contributed to major rocket engines. Mueller spent weekends with the Reaction Research Society building amateur rockets. In January 2002, Elon Musk visited Mueller in a warehouse where he was working on an eighty-pound amateur engine, immediately questioning him about thrust, costs, and capabilities. Impressed by Mueller's knowledge of TRW's TR-106 engine (650,000 pounds of thrust), Musk proposed he could build something comparable independently. They met again on Super Bowl Sunday 2002 to sketch the design for what became SpaceX's first rocket, debating propellant choices and settling on liquid oxygen and kerosene for both stages. Musk offered Mueller the position of head of propulsion. Mueller required two years' compensation in escrow before accepting, which Musk granted but which Musk later cited as disqualifying Mueller from cofounder status—a distinction Musk believed required personal financial risk. Musk established SpaceX's headquarters in an old warehouse near Los Angeles International Airport, organizing it so design, engineering, and manufacturing teams worked in close proximity to enable immediate feedback. He cultivated a culture of risk-tolerance and results-driven decision-making, discouraging negative voices. The team worked late nights and played competitive multiplayer shooter games. Musk named the rocket Falcon 1 (after Star Wars) and left Mueller to name the engines; Mueller chose Merlin for the first stage and Kestrel for the second stage.