After helping solve Earth-to-orbit launch, Mueller founded Impulse Space to focus on the next major opportunity: moving payloads around in space. He views launch as a 'solved' problem and in-space transportation as the next critical layer of infrastructure.
Tom Mueller considers 3D printing a 'cheat code' for building high-performance rocket engines. It allows engineers to simply draw and print complex internal geometries like cooling passages and injectors, bypassing the extremely difficult machining, welding, and brazing required by traditional methods.
Rather than relying on scarce, experienced talent, Impulse learned to make composite tanks by hiring a consultant and embracing a 'cut and try' approach. They intentionally burst test articles to validate designs and rapidly build institutional knowledge from the ground up.
Drawing from his experience leading the Merlin engine development, Mueller observes that both it and the Raptor engine required three full versions to become truly 'tight,' reliable products. This suggests a rule of thumb for deep-tech hardware development cycles.
Tom Mueller argues that while solar electric works near Earth, nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) is the future for deep space exploration. It can provide enough power to not only reach distant targets like Pluto but also slow down to enter orbit, enabling long-term science missions instead of brief flybys.
Tom Mueller believes the Moon is more important than Mars in the near term, primarily as a source of critical resources. He highlights a potential terrestrial copper shortage, driven by data center demand, as a key economic driver for establishing a lunar mining presence.
Impulse Space accelerates development by being 'extremely vertically integrated.' Co-locating the machine shop, assembly areas, and a test area enables a tight 'build, assemble, test' loop, allowing the team to iterate on hardware designs with maximum speed.
To avoid one- to two-year lead times and prohibitive costs for critical composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs), Impulse Space brought the entire manufacturing process in-house. This gives them direct control over the cost, quality, and supply of a major spacecraft mass component.
Tom Mueller argues that moving data centers to space is an inevitable solution to AI's crushing energy demand on Earth. With compute power needs growing over 15% annually, space offers unlimited solar power as an input, with data as the only output beamed back via laser.