Hanging out with the guy who launched the fastest manmade object in history.

TLDR; The fastest manmade object ever was just launched from Florida, and it’s possible you didn’t hear much about it. I had the honor of meeting Tory Bruno, Chief Executive Officer of United Launch Alliance on the Mobile Service Tower for rollback prior to the Parker Solar Probe Delta IV Heavy launch. He showed up without media or an entourage…. which I thought was awesome. I also captured a candid moment between him and his wife.

I love rockets. I have an MS in Aerospace Engineering, and I’m currently pursuing my PhD in the topic. I’ve personally tested thousands of rockets, but I’m embarrassed to admit that until yesterday I had never seen an orbital launch. I live in the same area in North Alabama that the ULA Delta IV Heavy rockets are created. One day while getting my haircut an engineer from the plant was waiting beside me and we started up a discussion about flight manifests, policies, and rocket nozzle lead times… you know, normal barbershop talk. One thing led to another and somehow through several emails over a couple of years I was invited to come to the Parker Solar Probe Launch.

This is me waiting on Tory. At this point, I’m assuming a huge entourage is about to show up with a gaggle of reporters and photographers to try to squeeze ever drop of social media out of Tory checking out the Delta IV.

Me waiting on Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance.

He showed up in a cowboy hardhat and graciously said he’s a subscriber and then we talked about about YouTube videos and our educational backgrounds. No professional photographers. No entourage. Just two people shaking hands. I asked my buddy Trent to come with me to take some good photos and we were shocked to discover we were literally the only ones there with cameras. It didn’t take me long to realize that he just genuinely wanted to meet. This blew my mind. He had met with Eugene Parker a bit earlier and was coming to the pad for the Mobile Service Tower (MST) rollback. He wasn’t there to generate a buzz, he was there to check out his rocket before an important launch for the scientific community. We’ve communicated a bit on twitter in the past and he wanted to take the opportunity to educate me on the rocket. Did I mention he showed up without any photographers or media? Because that happened.

I didn’t know they made hardhats that look like cowboy hats.

He asked me if I wanted to “walk over to the rocket”. This felt surreal. His wife walked along behind us with their driver so we could talk alone. I was very happy he didn’t show up with media because I just wanted to geek out over rockets with someone who has spent their entire life working on them. Turns out I was able to do just that.

The Delta IV Heavy was surrounded by the MST at this point.

When we got closer I started asking about throttling profiles and thrust vector control. Parker Solar Probe is interesting because it has a SOLID upper stage. He explained that this made pointing accuracy extremely important. If you’re going to make it to the correct position around Venus, you’ve got to nail that orientation.

The fueling lines were hooked up.

I asked if my buddy Trent could take a photo of us.

He shook hands with all the MST workers on the way over to the tower and we had a safety briefing. My hat was the largest concern and I was given specific instructions to not drop it. We went up to in the MST and we were so close to the rocket we could have touched it. I wasn’t about to touch flight hardware. I played it cool and never mentioned it, but I also notice that he kept his distance the entire time.

Tory answering my rocket questions and me trying to not drop my hat.

I asked him about the name Andrew A. Dantzler’s name on the side of the rocket. I had heard the story from one of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab scientists and was curious to know how much he knew about Andy since he was from a different organization. Turns out he knew more than the scientist I had spoken to. He explained that Andy was the person responsible for figuring out the flight profile possible to make the Parker Solar Probe possible, and if the Delta IV Heavy did its job, it would be the fastest manmade object ever as a result. Andy unfortunately passed away due to cancer recently. Tory went on to say that ULA often dedicates a rocket/flight to a person who has contributed in a huge way to the science that’s about to take place. In general Tory talked about people quite a bit, which I thought was cool.

Andy was not a ULA employee, but they dedicated the rocket/flight to him.

As far as I could tell, this was the closest Tory ever got to the rocket.

It was hot so the coat eventually came off and we became more relaxed. Workers below us were preparing the tower to move so we had time for informal conversation. All questions were on the table. I asked him about reusability and asked about his future plans and goals. I pressed him on different aspects of the plan and he countered with benefits and things it would make possible that I hadn’t considered. I recorded it all and will post it on Smarter Every Day.

Real talk

I stepped away to take some photos and setup a timelapse camera for rollback.

Once the rollback started, I stepped away to start taking photos as the rocket revealed itself.

As the MST inched away from vehicle I could see more of the body and the logos. The general scale of where I was standing and what actually was happening started to hit me in a more real way. Cameras just don’t do it justice.

The scale of the rocket was gradually revealed.

My main technical questions were about how exactly the side boosters are coupled with the main core. Tory explained that they must be rigidly coupled because if not, the control problem can become more dynamic.

A bit of an optical illusion happened at this point. I couldn’t feel the tower move, and had the sensation that the rocket was moving instead of us. Very few people get to see this. It was really beautiful.

The logo was finally visible above us. The satellite was made by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. I’ll explain some features of the spacecraft in an upcoming Smarter Every Day video.

The design of this satellite is incredible. It’s all about managing thermal deltas. Looking forward to discussing in an upcoming video. I interviewed several scientists.

I’m very thankful to have had such a unique perspective for the rocket reveal.

While I was still fiddling with my camera Tory’s wife walked over and started talking VERY technical details. They started discussing the differences in ablative properties of the different types of insulations used and why certain sections were coated with different coatings. Such an intimate technical moment was unexpected to say the least. I heard hushed talk about tradeoffs between cryo and solids and mechanical coupling and components. They discussed the hold down explosive bolts etc. I was pretty baffled at how quickly the conversation passed my knowledge base.

A candid moment.

She asked several questions about this particular design.

He seemed to provide an answer (I couldn’t hear what they were saying).

Then she would fire back with counterpoints and he would listen. This discussion continued for several minutes. It was an absolutely beautiful moment.

I found out later that Tory’s wife is also a rocket scientist who worked for many years on hypersonic missiles. She was gracious with me and they played it off. My escort asked me if I wanted to talk to Tory more (should she interrupt?), I said “no… I just want to watch this play out… this is a beautiful thing”.

Relationship goals.

Here’s a dude that’s the CEO of a rocket company that is about to fire a rocket that folks from all over the world are waiting on…… and he’s on the pad without a massive entourage casually discussing the finer parts of rocket science through with his wife. I don’t care about the politics of contracts etc…. I love rockets, and I love strong families. I’ve never seen anything like this on the news and I wanted to document it. Awesome marriages should be celebrated.

Fully exposed rocket, ready for fueling.

I also like the fact that this thing worked and that satellite is on its way to Venus right now!

This was an incredible experience. Please checkout my YouTube channel to see the videos I have planned. https://www.youtube.com/smartereveryday

P.S. I tracked the entire launch with a Lumix GH5S @ 1920x1080 & 240fps. Big thanks to Panasonic/Lumix who sent the camera out before launch so I could try to track it with a 300mm. I’m looking forward to sharing the footage on the video. Here I’ve sped it up to show the moment the plume became most visible because of vapor. I’ll show this in a future YouTube video of course.

Feel free to checkout Tory Bruno on Twitter. You’ll find that he’s happy to get very technical if you have questions. He’s pretty active and responds quite often.