Ring of Fire
What do you want to be when you grow up? This question is asked at a few points throughout our lives and the answers are ever changing. Firefighter, doctor, or rocket scientist. Much of the time we don’t truly know who we are and where our place is in society and the world, so why do we come up with these dreams and aspirations?
Our hobbies, interests, and even morals change as we grow up and develop a better understanding of ourselves. Admittedly I am still in the thick of it. I have wanted to be a chef, a professional extreme athlete, and a motorcycle designer. I have gone from hunting to being against concealed carry laws to petitioning for my right to bear arms to be reinstated. So how do we, or more specifically…how did I end up where I am and where the heck am I going with all this.
At the end of my college career, like many other new graduates, I was faced with one of the most real decisions of my life, my first job. I studied mechanical engineering, which I chose early on (senior year of high school) because a quick Google search showed me it was the most flexible major. With this major I could design race cars, help the developing countries progress their way of life, or even build rockets. Four days after graduation I started my career as a manufacturing engineer at SpaceX, a private sector launch company.
My decision to go work with rockets and spacecraft was based on the idea of building really cool shit. I am not a space geek by any means. I don’t know how many moons Jupiter has or what type of star the sun is, but I do have a passion for taking on challenges and relentlessly pursuing a solution. Four years and 18 successful missions later I have great pride in what we are doing as a company and my contributions to the future of space travel. However, nothing prepared me for a failure like I witnessed live just 2 weeks ago.
Early on our launches were few and far between. My involvement with the engines and constant discussions with fellow engineers gave me an attachment to the vehicles that kept me up at night before t-0. Now that I have been working in research and development I watch the launches with the same excitement but am missing the details to be helpful when questions arise. Watching the rocket live and see it quickly disappear into a gaseous cloud of oxygen and partially combusted RP1 I was speechless.
Now that I have had time to reflect on the launch failure and myself the words are easier to put on this page.
Complacency is a killer! This is not to say that we are complacent by any means at SpaceX, exactly the opposite and what we are doing to the space launch industry no one has ever done before. Launch, Land, Re-launch! This is an incredible idea and growing pains can be expected when boundaries are pushed.
I have been lucky enough to work with a few brilliant mentors who taught me something that I have always lived by, but now am a lot more conscious of it.
“Work like you have nothing to lose”
Fear of failure is a self-inflicted obstacle we all need to overcome. What are you truly afraid of? Is it the possibility that you might be left without a job if you try something and it doesn’t work out? Is it a lack of understanding that forces your mindset into a hole and you can’t see a way out? The idea of working like you have nothing to lose is simple. Try things! Mess up! Learn from your mistakes! Cascade this work ethic across all aspects of your life.
As I said before I am an engineer, but also an extreme sport athlete and glorified executive chef of my own kitchen. Passions need to be fed and it is important to not lose sight of what makes you feel alive.
So, What do you want to be when you grow up?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmJgW-yMAIg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhMSzC1crr0
http://www.space.com/29789-spacex-rocket-failure-cargo-launch.html