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…Which is 10 times smaller than it is today. Yeah. When I left it was probably around 5500 people, and it's now easily 7000 and growing. It was very much the wild west days. You're taking these components that have been designed and tested, but you need to get them into spacecraft form and launched. Most of the stuff had never been done before. It was all initial systems. As a manufacturing engineer, it was focused on designing processes, training up technicians, putting work instructions in place, and then also just kind of like building yourself. I spent a huge amount of time in that first stage in the factory. On the factory floor, I was like a glorified technician and then ended up learning a lot from the existing technicians in just the hands-on process of building aerospace components. I spent a ton of time down at Cape Canaveral just getting launched articles. Once the vehicle was prepared for flight, it was then integrating all the final systems, putting it through [...], static fire, and then watching it go to space. It was just pretty wildly educational. From there I moved into what's called a responsible engineering position. You're responsible end-to-end. There is no other individual to point to and say we didn't succeed, it's your fault—the buck stops here type role. I worked there on a few structural systems. Finally, about halfway through my career at SpaceX, we had succeeded at getting the cargo vehicle through its COTS Program. We were starting on the human-rated program at SpaceX. This required a life support system to be developed. SpaceX had obviously no human-rated experience. I was one of the first four employees who had the opportunity to work in that department. I look at that project as, for sure, the pinnacle of my experience at SpaceX. I mean the team was just unbelievable. Some of the best people I've ever met and had the opportunity to work with. I got to lead the pressurized life support systems team. This is developing the oxygen breathing system. The pressurized tanks that go in the vehicle carry high-pressure oxygen, distribute it, regulate it down to lower pressures into the cabin, into the spacesuits, sensing oxygen concentrations, keeping the cabin at environmentally safe pressures and compositions. The fire suppression system, the docking adapting system that pressurizes kind of the space between the International Space Station in the Dragon capsule after docking—all of these pneumatic pressurization mechanisms. I was able to lead that small team, an amazing team through to the completion of the critical design review phase. That’s great. As we know now, Dragon Cargo and Dragon Crew have both successfully gone up. It must be crazy cool to see your work in action there.…

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