Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO and CTO of Impulse Space, (aka Employee #1 at SpaceX) gives Sourcery a walkthrough of the company's Redondo Beach factory, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber.

As SpaceX's founding employee, Tom led development of the engines for Falcon and Dragon and started the origins of what became Starship. His proudest project, the Merlin engine, still flies Falcon 9. In this episode he explains why he left to build the next layer of space infrastructure: moving payloads and cargo around once they're in orbit.

We tour Mira (the company's precision maneuvering spacecraft), Helios (the vehicle bringing same-day delivery to space), and the Deneb engine, and get into how Impulse designs and builds: extreme vertical integration, 3D-printed engines, in-house composite tanks, and a "build, test, iterate" loop.

Tom also shares where he thinks the industry is heading, on nuclear electric propulsion, data centers in space, the return to the Moon, and what it was like to work with Elon Musk.

Tom Mueller: https://x.com/lrocket 

Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea 

Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 

𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒

YouTube: https://youtu.be/WIORHdlPWAI

𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒

• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery 

• Turing—Turing delivers top-tier talent, data, and tools to help AI labs improve model performance—and enables enterprises to turn those models into powerful, production-ready systems. https://turing.com/sourcery 

• VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com  

• Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery

• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery 

• Merge—The leading provider of customer-facing integrations and agentic tools for frontier LLMs, Fortune 500 organizations, and B2B SaaS companies. Visit https://merge.dev  

Follow Sourcery for the latest updates!

https://www.sourcery.vc

Disclosure

Paid Endorsement. Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc, member FINRA & SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC-registered adviser. Crypto trading provided by Zero Hash LLC, licensed by the NYSDFS. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool by Public Advisors. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. See disclosures at public.com/disclosures/ga. Matched funds must remain in your account for at least 5 years. Match rate and other terms are subject to change at any time.

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒

(00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space

(00:49) Inside Impulse Space

(02:32) Avionics Bay floor

(02:59) Building rockets at home

(03:50) Mira and Helios

(08:00) Why he left SpaceX

(09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough

(11:42) Testing in Mojave

(12:23) Favorite part of the Engine

(13:30) How it's 3D Printed

(14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything

(16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs

(17:28) No Modern hardware without software

(19:52) The Mill Turn explained

(22:42) Payload Deck Design

(25:28) Entering the Secret Area

(30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, and 100 Sensors

(32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit

(32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber

(34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future

(38:49) Data Centers in Space

(40:28) SpaceX and Starlink's Growth

(41:10) Working with Elon