Rich Little, a welding engineer at United Launch Alliance, the space vehicle manufacturing company that manufactured the Atlas Delta and Vulcan Centaur launch vehicles, says that incoming welders will need preparation in the basics, including shield metal arc welding, gas metal arc welding, gas tungsten arc welding. He adds that on top of that, it would be great for them: "to learn some computers, electrical, systems, robotics—and start to understand that not all welding today is shield metal arc welding anymore, and these systems get very complicated. So, it almost becomes an engineering level of understanding on many systems [and that] if a technician is trying to go into aerospace  or really any manufacturing discipline that there is, whether that be automotive, or shipbuilding… having a knowledge of cycle times and manufacturing efficiency is important."