Launching a Truck Into Space 138
of those things. I had them hanging above my bed and
on the shelves around my bed. Of course they didn’t last
long because I’d always lose them or crash them or blow
them up or something.” One of the rockets carried a load
of crickets. Mueller wanted to see the effect of acceleration
on the unsuspecting creatures.^317
Mueller’s dream was to become an aircraft mechanic.
But during his first year in high school, his math teacher
asked him why he didn’t want to become an engineer.
Why was his dream to be the one who fixes the plane
and not the one who designed it? “If it hadn’t been for
that math teacher, I probably would have been a mechanic
or a logger,” Mueller said. “Thanks to him, I got the right
courses to go to college. And instead, I went off to be an
engineer.”^318
After a brief visit to California, Mueller knew he one
day would come back and work with rockets. But first he
needed to attend engineering school. During the summer
breaks, he worked as a logger. The work was exhausting. “I
knew that I did not want to do that for the rest of my life,”
Mueller said. “Because that was the alternative – I either
get through college and become an engineer or I’m going
to become a logger like the rest of my family. That was very,
very motivating. I’d be out there in the bugs and the sticks
working and sweating all summer. And I’d just think about,
when I get back to school, I’m going to study so hard.”^317
After graduation, Mueller moved to California and be-
gan working for TRW. Founded in 1901, TRW had worked
on the first American ICBM and the engine for the Apollo