Ex-NASA engineer hired by SpaceX at 62: more design iterations in 6 months than years at NASA
SumitGup · x · 2026-10-12
A retired NASA engineer who spent 25 years on the Space Shuttle program and was hired by SpaceX at 62 describes his first week as the most disorienting of his career: at NASA a design change took 3 meetings, 2 committees, a review board and 6-18 months of documentation; at SpaceX the rule was 'if it works, build it; if not, change it by Friday.' Within 6 months he had contributed to more design iterations than in years at NASA — the constraint he thought was inherent to aerospace was just bureaucracy.
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