There’s a quote, often attributed to Ferdinand Porsche, essentially saying that the best, winning race car falls to pieces just after crossing the finish line.
That philosophy inspires Austin Esquerra, an aerospace systems engineer at Blue Origin. “Every gram, every pound that we work with matters,” he told Payload.
Kerbalkind: Esquerra has been playing with rocket physics since he was 10 years old. Inspired by 2008’s Iron Man—”best movie of all time, undisputed,” according to him—he begged his parents to help him be like Tony Stark. Their solution: Help their preteen become an alpha adopter for Kerbal Space Program, a simulation video game that allows players to assemble spacecraft and test if they can fly.
Thousands of hours of playtime later, mechanical and aerospace engineering came naturally to Esquerra. He picked up a bachelor’s degree in both at California Baptist University, taking his first internship at Applied Medical at just 17 years old. After another internship at Tesla, Esquerra had an envious resume to present when Blue called.
Scribbleware: Esquerra started in Blue’s grad rotation program, moving to new positions frequently and getting his hands on New Glenn and the powerful BE-4 engine. But Esquerra wanted to join what he calls the “napkin sketch team”, meaning coming up with new designs.
“I went through, I’m not joking, I think 30 to 40 people before I finally found the name of it: It’s called core formulation, in the advanced-concepts program.” Esquerra joined as the youngest engineer on the team.
Other worlds: While Esquerra can’t talk officially about what his team at Blue is working on, as an individual he’s excited for forthcoming human Moon and Mars missions.
”The fundamental reality is that we have not landed on the Moon for the long term yet, and so there are a lot of things that we have to solve.”
