In early 2002, Elon was preparing to launch SpaceX and searching for the people who could help him build a rocket from scratch. One Sunday in January 2002, he walked into a friend's rented warehouse in Huntington Beach and found Tom Mueller holding an 80-pound rocket engine on his shoulder, trying to bolt it to a frame. It was the largest liquid-fuel engine any amateur had ever built, with 13,000 pounds of thrust, made in Tom's spare time. Elon asked the main question “Could you build something bigger?” The next Sunday Elon came to his house. It was Super Bowl Sunday; they watched maybe one play, because they were too busy sketching the first SpaceX rocket. Tom became SpaceX employee #1#, and the man who built engines on weekends went on to build Merlin, Kestrel and Draco. Elon saw a person, not a résumé, someone who built rockets with his own hands simply because he loved them.