Impulse Space CEO Tom Mueller - Propulsion, and Rocket Engines - NSF Live

In this episode of NSF Live, Jack will talk with Tom Mueller, CEO of Impulse Space, and former CTO of propulsion at SpaceX. Topics will include his work on Impulse Space, space propulsion, past engines, and much more.
NSF Live is NASASpaceflight.com's weekly(ish) show covering the latest (~1 week old) news in spaceflight. It's broadcast live on Sundays at 3 p.m. Eastern. On each show, we rotate through various hosts and special guests.

[@MickRonald]

Another excellent NSF Live show in the CEO Interview Series! More please. Thank you Tom, Jack, and Adrian.

[@suchdevelopments]

😄Good day from Lismore, NSW. I am 70 years old, and I saw Apolo 11 land on the Moon on TV. When I was in Tamworth, NSW, on 👉July 16-24, 1969. 👈

[@michaczajka3854]

I hit that notification button soo fast when i saw u guys talk to Tom. Thank you for having him! He’s such a legend!

[@lukeclarkson5574]

Thank you NSF and Tom,it’s been a great show 🚀

[@Clifton100]

Thanks! Never heard Tom speak before and he kept this interesting, even when the questions weren't flowing especially well. Great stuff!

[@rogerrinkavage]

This interview us giving me chills haha, im an aerospace student and grew up less than an hour from where tom did. Theres a good chance he hauled logs past my house 🤯

[@Thats_A_Good_Idea]

Wow, an incredible stuff! Tom is great presenter. Many thanks to NSF Team for making this NSF Live!

[@pipersall6761]

Great interview! Thank you Mr. Mueller and all the best to you and your endeavors!

[@dr4d1s]

Thank you so much Tom and NSF! I always love when you have engineers on, talking almost exclusively about engineering. These interviews really make me wish I would have gone into Aerospace Engineering instead of Telecommunications Engineering 20+ years ago. At that point in time though, the space industry (from the outside looking in) was much more stagnant than today; whereas the telecommunications industry (and computers in general) were making huge advancements almost every time you turned around. Anyways, enough rambling from me. I am going to watch this interview again. Thank you!

[@r0sal3sr]

Tom Mueller!!! Wish we could get some more of him.

[@w9gb]

Happy you were able to interview Tom. Unfortunately, could not watch all Live.

[@ilyasverdlov7364]

Ha! Found myself among Launch Directors! Cool! And thanks for awesome talk, we all learned a lot

[@Pleasantstorm]

I'd just like to tell you how happy and excited I get everytime hearing and watching that intro!!!

[@thearpox7873]

Loved the interview. And I also loved that the hosts are learning a lot. Better experience than any legacy media could give.

[@obiwanbill5506]

Wow, what a gracious interview! Tom is a super guy! Tom, thanks for all your effort to push us into space! 🚀 Like the NSF guys with their “perma smiles”, I won’t be able to wipe the smile off my face either! 🤣😂🤣

[@jameskelly3502]

Tom Mueller is the true genius behind SpaceX and Falcon 9 and Dragon (engine wise). I'm so glad he has his own company, and I'm looking forward to what he builds next.

[@jchidley]

I love listening to Tom; excellent interview. The only limit is trying to find interesting questions to ask. Perhaps a follow up with the extra questions that this interview has prompted?

[@zapfanzapfan]

Awesome interview! Hope the burn went well!

[@janedoe9940]

That was a great interview, thank you so much about it!

[@matyasiadam4656]

The engineer in me turned on and i just felt like everything was interesting again like it was in childhood. Great one! More of this pleeeeeease!!!

[@fly4fun610]

Fascinating interview. Learned so much, and excited to contemplate what can be accomplished using the Impulse tugs/kick stages.

[@corrinastanley125]

Great interview Jack and Adrian , thanks NSF team.

[@WarrenLacefield]

Great interview! I remember loving to play/experiment with my Alpha-1 Ballistic Missile Rocket Kit as a child.

[@SaahilAcharya]

so happy to see Mueller doing so many great interviews. So for the love of god someone send him a decent and easy to install microphone!

[@galileo3431]

Amazing! Could you also do an interview with Tim Buzza about early SpaceX, Virgin Galactic/Oribit and Relativity Space? 😍

[@AndyPetrie]

Awesome interview, thanks guys...

[@LaughingOrange]

Great interview. Learned a lot about Impulse Space, and rocket engines in general.

[@museummaker]

What a great guy, that was fantastic

[@rikomagyar7850]

Great Video, Lovely Future. Greetings from Australia, Perth.... ///

[@fwd79]

Best of luck, Tom, hopefully this company will stay afloat. .

[@winman14may]

Fantastic episode!! ❤

[@refurbansuburban]

Simply outstanding 🎉 for this old mechanical engineer

[@pravinkajarekar6232]

Thanks.

[@cfresh44]

Incredible story. Tom was born to make rockets. So crazy.

[@Rachel.4644]

How fast we're where we are. Crazy.

[@WWeronko]

Much like the historic RM-81 Agena stage on the Atlas, Thor, Thorad and Titan IIIB rockets and the Centaur D-1T third stage on the Titan IIIE, the concept illustrated by Impulse Space's Helios has been around for some time. It seems like there has been an excessive wait for a "space tug" of this capability to be developed for the Falcon 9 class lifters. Most of the GEO satellites by weight are largely fuel used to transition from GTO to final orbital placement. Having the ability to put their large satellites directly into their orbital slot without having to pay for a Falcon Heavy will save much time to station and increase their orbital life dramatically. I look forward to Impulse Space's new capability and wish them nothing but success.

[@oldmanstumpie1061]

Very cool 👍👍

[@advX]

Tom Mueller is the Rocket Man!

[@jimruddy6083]

Amazing! Hw should write a book!

[@Rorschach1024]

Solidworks FTW!

[@briandrown3595]

So Tom, What do you think about using an aerospike nozzle with the RDE design ?

[@kineticdyslexic3093]

West coast is best coast confirmed😊

[@lukeclarkson5574]

We all know that east coast is best coast

[@robertanderson5092]

The west is the best - Jim Morrison

[@Martinit0]

Everybody knows that Cote d'Azur is the best coast.

[@Spherical_Cow]

A space tug that doesnt have enough fuel to go to GEO and them come back to refuel in LEO, isnt great. But... could one possibly use a solar sail to slowly 'tack' back into LEO from GEO?

[@afish976]

Well, I'm pretty sure you could use a solar sail to tack as low as ~900km altitude circular orbit. Issue being the ratio of atmospheric drag to photon pressure... The sail acting as either an atmospheric parachute or as a big photon sail depending on the ratio of the two. Then... solar sails are still quite low TRL (technology readiness level), you'd need to do a lot of prototyping and practice before you could use one at scale practically... Part of the early phase technology issue includes those being quite heavy (slow acceleration). Current sail designs are limited by the need to avoid tearing during unrolling / unfolding, because they have to stow away for launch. My suspicion is this will get easier once we can do in space assembly... Say, Made In Space's truss-making prototype machine can make the structural booms, then pull threads (or something similarly thin) around as a bracing structure. Make giant robotic arms with similar in-space trusses, and you might be able to pull the sail material into place much more gently than trying to unroll it right now. EDIT: When I wrote this I was thinking of Northrop's refueling port getting adopted by the US military for their satellites... They might have distinct tugs carrying fuel into GEO, and that is way less time sensitive than the comsats themselves are. A solar sail is something like 6 months to 5 years for each trip up and down, depending on what kind of TWR you can get. Way more useful for refueling, or carrying bulk materials for a space station than comsat delivery.

[@Krishell]

I need Tom @ Joe or Lex. 3 hours interview.

[@PowerScissor]

Starts @1:30

[@albertgerard4639]

I would have asked more rapid fire questions from chat and just marvelled at his answers: “What is the difference between Ox rich Methane, Hydrogen, kerosene”

[@LaughingOrange]

Starts at 1:28

[@batchint]

a lot this is based on model making and what sustains curiosity… 🎉

[@philipwittamore]

Wondering if this could become a tug, refueling on a starship tanker

[@caldodge]

Re "why not methane?" - before Elon and SpaceX the emphasis was on increasing the mass fraction to orbit, as well as ISP. Hydrogen gave the best ISP, so the Shuttle had hydrolox engines, with such low thrust that it had to use solid boosters (yes, hydrolox is a stupid choice for a first stage launching from Earth). AFAIK Elon was among the first to recognize that the correct metric was cost per mass to orbit, not mass fractions or ISP. Also, as long as rockets were throwaways, fuel costs were inconsequential - less than one percent of launch costs. FWIW, Jerry Pournelle was suggesting lightweight hydrocarbons like propane (possibly methane, too) for SSTOs, because of the thrust issue and propellant costs. He knew that with fully reusable spacecraft, fuel costs would actually be significant.

[@Imagine_Beyond]

The reason why the shuttle needed the solid boosters is because the hydrolox engines did not produce enough thrust to get the shuttle off the ground. Solid rocket engines have a low Isp, cannot be turned off after ignited and in addition are terrible for the environment. The only advantage they have is that they produce lots of thrust. Hydrolox engines have a higher Isp than methalox engines like the ones SpaceX uses. However, methane is denser than hydrogen, meaning that you need a smaller volume to carry the fuel. In terms of kg of fuel needed of a certain amount of delta v, hydrogen wins. Also hydrogen has the advantage that it is better for the environment than methane.

[@batchint]

should we say… shotwell… 🎉

[@boringusername792]

I love my Debian install but I spend 90% of my time in the browser so this could work...

[@ericbrooking]

Tom is your 1966 Lotus a Super Seven? Like the Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan???

[@robertanderson5092]

Bueller? ... Bueller?

[@bigoen]

I truly believe that humanity will succeed...😎🥸