Welding for Space: James Holster on Moon Landers & Rockets

James Holster [: 00:00:00

So Blue Ghost is our moon lander that we currently built here in house, tested it in house. The welds 100% welded, all the valves are welded in. So there's no unscrewing and dropping of the valve? No, it's a lot more complicated than that. When you have to do a repair, that's what we're sending with about 10 payloads to the moon here coming. And I think it's January that we're supposed to go, I'm not mistaken, to be like a 45 day transit to the moon.

Andrew Brown [: 00:00:27

Hi, I'm Andrew Brown. You're listening to the lost star of the skilled Trades Pod podcast, a show that shines the spotlight on careers in the skilled trades that are high paying, honorable, rewarding and fulfilling. The trades are the backbone of the economy that keep us running and without them, our world would cease to exist. Today we have a special guest on the show, James Holster of Firefly Aerospace. Welcome James to the show.

James Holster [: 00:01:01

Good to be here.

Andrew Brown [: 00:01:02

I've always been fascinated by space travel. Maybe this was me as a kid, maybe being an astronaut one day, I don't know what it was, but watching movies like Apollo 13, I remember even back in the day watching the Challenger go up and I was a kid and obviously that was a tragic event. Watching SpaceX's rocket come down and it catches the rocket and it's this massive 20 story rocket, unbelievable stuff. You get to work on spacecrafts at Firefly Aerospace. Tell me about that.

James Holster [: 00:01:35

Every day is a challenge. It's never simple. We're pushing cutting edge technology so we have to do some things that haven't been done yet before. Some things that are, aren't going to be found in a textbook somewhere that we're making up as we go along to figure out how to get this to work.

Andrew Brown [: 00:01:49

How does one become, I understand, like the welding trade, but you're very specific in working on spacecrafts and that's going into space. I mean what was your route into becoming a welder in the trades?

James Holster [: 00:02:03

When I graduated high school, I joined the US Navy. That's where I learned to weld. And you really learn the nuts and bolts of welding. It is one of the best places to learn how to weld because the requirements to have for nuclear reactors and submarine holes and high pressure steam lines, it's no joke, you're going to kill someone if you mess up. So it's very, very stringent requirement for those welds. So you really learn what's okay, what's not okay. You know, when you do a good weld, you know, when you do a bad world, you know, because you've got that experience by the time you really do it. So that's where I learned to weld.

Andrew Brown [: 00:02:34

I'm sure the tolerances is just like within, like here or there. You could be off and poof. Something can really fail. How many years were you doing it in the Navy?

James Holster [: 00:02:46

I've been welding for about 23 years now.

Andrew Brown [: 00:02:48

23 years. What was the background for you? Was anybody in the trades with your family? In the trades? Was anybody blue collar?

James Holster [: 00:02:58

My dad was a truck driver and he didn't want me to be a truck driver. He wanted me to do something that paid really well that would have me home every night. So he really suggested welding because he knew a couple welders in the shop, always home every night. They made more money than he does a driver. So he was really kind of pushing me in that direction.

Andrew Brown [: 00:03:14

And when did you really start to get interested in that trade? Where did you really start? Right outta school into the Navy, or was it before? Do you start tinkering around?

James Holster [: 00:03:24

I had zero, really experience joining when I joined. So I learned everything from the US Navy. That's where I learned it. We have a really good school there. It's 12 weeks long and you're doing six weeks of just stick welding and you got a week of TIG we can make, you know, week of brazing, week of sheet metal layout and blueprint design. So it's really probably one of the best trade schools you're going to get. You know, joining the US Navy for welding is by none the best idea for me. It was anyway, and I think it's.

Andrew Brown [: 00:03:49

All about having the right instructor. It's interesting. I just had the president of the American Welding Society on the podcast. We were talking about instructors, how it's hard to find instructors today. It's one thing to find welders with the shortage that's going on, but also instructors. And having the right instructors. It sounds like you had good advice or at least good teachings from the Navy.

James Holster [: 00:04:12

Oh, yes. A lot of my instructors really learned how to kind of read the room and read the class to see what everyone's level of comfort was and then try to build it from there. That's some really, really amazing instructors. I had zero, well time when I got there. Zero by the time I graduated. I could run uphill, downhill, I could do pipe, I could do plate. Like, they really worked to get me into shape to be able to, you know, weld these things on the boat, because I have to. There's no one else to call.

James Holster [: 00:04:36

No one's coming. You're gonna have to do it.

Andrew Brown [: 00:04:38

And I'm sure that taught you tight timelines as well. I'm sure there were guidelines. I mean that has probably taught you a vast amount.

James Holster [: 00:04:46

Absolutely. I mean you have to deliver first time. Every time you press them up could go wrong. Somebody could, you know, you have a steam leak that's not good. Now 1200 psi steam leak is not good for anybody. They really beat that into you. Like it has to be perfect or you're going to kill somebody. Because you may actually kill somebody.

James Holster [: 00:05:02

The Level 1 requirements on a submarine and an aircraft carrier, they're up there. So X rays don't lie. Everything's X rayed. So you're going to find out real.

Andrew Brown [: 00:05:10

Quick what was the most exciting project welding wise outside of obviously Firefly, but when you working in the Navy.

James Holster [: 00:05:17

So I was welding at ACU 5 and Camp Pendleton and that's all aluminum welding on landing craft. So something totally different I'd never done before. And it was a nice challenge with welding aluminum, marine grade aluminum especially. Completely different from what I had ever done before. So it was really like, oh, I thought I knew something, now I don't know anything. So it was kind of nice refresher to see something new.

Andrew Brown [: 00:05:37

And that sounds like a short learning experience. But you crammed in so much in a very short period of time.

James Holster [: 00:05:44

I mean you kind of get time. I think the welding school there is maybe five weeks long. Tig welding aluminum and inconel and your MIG welding aluminum and they do a break test on it. You got to get it real quick.

Andrew Brown [: 00:05:54

You know, some people are good with their hands. Just growing up, they tinkered with things, they built things. Were you like that growing up? Was that in you in the beginning?

James Holster [: 00:06:04

Growing up, I wanted to be a blacksmith. I wanted to pull metal out of the fire, hammer it and make it into something cool. You know, horseshoe or candle holder, knife, whatever the case may be. And molding just kind of came natural that way.

Andrew Brown [: 00:06:17

Interesting. Well, you've could have done that years ago if you really wanted to. So coming out of the Navy, did you go directly into working for Firefly or did you go a different direction? What were you doing right after Navy?

James Holster [: 00:06:31

I was in San Diego working for a company called at the time it was Goodrich Aerospace and we were making thrust reverses for the Boeing 787. So that's what I did straight coming out of the Navy.

Andrew Brown [: 00:06:42

From there you went to Firefly or you.

James Holster [: 00:06:45

I went to SpaceX. I was at SpaceX for about five years after UTC. I mean, before we landed, I was working there.

Andrew Brown [: 00:06:51

What was it like for you to see the SpaceX? The rocket comes down and it catches. I mean, that must have been amazing to see that.

James Holster [: 00:07:00

I have a lot of friends that still work there and it was nice to see their hard work come to fruition. I mean, to see that level of technology and that it's nice to see somebody in the industry doing it besides yourself. So it's really amazing when your friends do good.

Andrew Brown [: 00:07:13

It's unbelievable what they're capable of working with your hands. And it's really the people behind the scenes that are doing that work, the people in the trades, the engineers. It's just unbelievable to see where you're working today in Firefly. Are there different welders? Are you the only welder?

James Holster [: 00:07:30

I'm the only one for spacecraft. I did Blue Ghost and suv. When I'm not doing Blue Ghost suv, I'm up at Briggs with a team of other welders working on the Alpha rocket. We'll handle all the Miranda, the Lightning Alpha, first and second stage. That's what we're doing. I'm not doing Blue Ghost or SUV welding.

Andrew Brown [: 00:07:47

Tell us a little bit more about Blue Ghost.

James Holster [: 00:07:50

So Blue Ghost is our moon lander that we've currently built here in house, Tested it in house. The weld's 100% welded. All the valves are welded in. So there's no unscrewing and dropping of the valve? No, it's a lot more complicated than that. When you have to do a repair, that's what we're sitting with. About 10 payloads to the moon here coming. And I think it's January that we're supposed to go. I'm not mistaken.

James Holster [: 00:08:11

It's gonna be like a 45 day transit to the moon. We'll be there for about 14 earth days, which I believe is only one moon day. Then we're going to have all our payloads do what they do best. And then we're hoping for a successful landing, which I don't see why we shouldn't. We got a great team of engineers working night and day. It's nice. It's nice working with people who are passionate.

Andrew Brown [: 00:08:30

It's about having passionate people on the team. Did you have to learn a different skill set joining Firefly? Or did the experience in the Navy give you the skill set that you needed? Or did you have to learn a different set of Skills I learned to.

James Holster [: 00:08:45

Do Orbital 2 building at SpaceX. I was there for five years doing that. I already knew how to manually take weld, stick weld, mig. That helps me here. So I do a lot of otw. I write my own schedules. I'll determine the parameters of the actual well. But I can manually take weld here so it's not a huge extra learning.

James Holster [: 00:09:03

What really got me was not, you know, the flow dynamics of your back purge when you're flowing through two regulators and a valve and how much that changes your pressure when you're welding and when the heat can't escape, it's gonna blow your weld out. So you really. That was the learning curve right there. Was learning that section of that welding.

Andrew Brown [: 00:09:20

Well, talk about the tolerances of, you know, obviously working on submarines or working on aircraft carrier. But sending something into space is completely different, right? Compared to working on those type of things.

James Holster [: 00:09:35

It's more the environments that they're operating in that are different. Carriers and submarines are obviously operating in salt water or under extreme pressure, which is hard going into space. It's a lot different. It's a different requirement. The fuel is different. The things that we have to worry about keeping clean so they don't react with the fuel versus on a submarine or an air. It's very different but same very stringent, very hard requirement. We're looking like our porosity requirement for by D 17.1 it's 0.007 is what you're allowed.

Andrew Brown [: 00:10:03

Well, how do you set yourself up if you make a mistake somewhere or there's something's off slightly like what happens at that point during the process.

James Holster [: 00:10:12

You know, sometimes having a really good engineer or a teammate to help you bounce ideas off with really can help. You know, if you're not sure what you did. Just sitting down with somebody to talk it out will most of the time get you through it. Figuring out okay, what did I do wrong? What did we do different? How do we change this? So having somebody a good team to bounce ideas off of really helps. You can't do it all on your.

Andrew Brown [: 00:10:31

Own and it's good to have team players. How many people are at the company?

James Holster [: 00:10:36

700 company wide.

Andrew Brown [: 00:10:37

And again, how many welders are there for OTW?

James Holster [: 00:10:40

I believe there's maybe 7 or 8 for the whole company.

Andrew Brown [: 00:10:45

I wanted to shift this quickly and just get your thoughts about the trades or the welding trade. A lot of kids are coming out of school or in school and I feel like the trades still have that old stigma that they're looked down upon. A lot of kids today feel the same way. They look at the wages, they look at the amount of work that has to be done. Being outside and being in the elements. Is there anything you can kind of myth bust and say, like on the trade side to kids today who think that the trades are just not worth it?

James Holster [: 00:11:18

You know, you're always going to need somebody to do trade work, whether it be plumbing, being electrical, being a well, there's always going to be a need. You're always going to be able to pick up that job. You know, you lock yourself into a certain degree path, you're stuck and that's all you can do. But I mean, going in the trade is probably one of the best things I ever did. It gave me that flexibility to pivot, start another career path, you know, maybe pick up another skill here or there. It's not all that bad. It really isn't working outside and getting done. And if you finish a project, you look like, yeah, I built that.

James Holster [: 00:11:45

That was me and my team that we built. That's a sense of pride that you have. And then watching it work perfectly, you're like, yep, okay, so I was right. I didn't know what I was doing. I am confident in what I'm doing here.

Andrew Brown [: 00:11:56

I think tradespeople, I don't want to use the word brag because I think it's the wrong word, but I think it's more the feeling of accomplishment, fulfillment when somebody built something, a bridge, a tunnel or a building, and they say, I built that. I built that school for kids at school to go learn. And that is a sense of pride. There's something about that. When that rocket goes up, you are a part of that. It has to be a good feeling.

James Holster [: 00:12:21

It's almost like you're building a monument to engineering and technical marvel is what you should probably look at it. It's not, oh, I just welded that. No, no, no. You welded a rocket engine and put a payload in space. Not everybody can say that, you know, not a lot of people can so, like, take pride in what you do because that's what's going to get you through when it's hard.

Andrew Brown [: 00:12:37

Yeah. Also, it's a skill set that I always feel is in demand. You can always take that skill set around. There's always a need for a welder, an electrician, a plumber. And I almost say to some degree, it's recession proof. To some degree, things need to be fixed. Infrastructure needs to be fixed. They need to send rockets into space.

Andrew Brown [: 00:12:57

Like there's stuff that needs to get done. And there's a statistic out there, and it's by welding workforce data run by the American Welding Society. They say that we need 330,000 welders by 2028, and about 159,000 are set to retire in the next five or 10 years. So the opportunities are there because there's desperate need across the country for welders today.

James Holster [: 00:13:22

Bridge has got to be rebuilt and maintain. They were built by my father's generation. They're not supposed to last forever. Someone's got to maintain them, someone's got to redo them. How many times the news have you seen waterline rupture? Pipes are too corroded and they didn't have people to go out there to weld them. The infrastructure our grandparents and our parents built, we got to now maintain it, expand it. So it's never going to go away. You know, there's always going to be new track homes got.

James Holster [: 00:13:43

Someone's got like the power line, some go lay the plumbing for it. I'm going to build it. So someone's going to have to do the work. You might as well pick yourself a job that's going to be in demand for a long time. These are things that aren't going away.

Andrew Brown [: 00:13:53

You know, especially if you're good with your hands and you like the technical aspect of it. I do feel like you kind of know that when you're young, you just kind of know that you like working on things or you worked on cars or you fix things around the house. And I feel like, you know that a young age. But what do kids do if they're in high school? They know they're good with their hands and they're thinking about, you know, welding is my thing. I like sparks. I like the aspect of welding. Can you give any suggestions for kids today on the career exploration side? If they want to get into the welding chain, what are some things that they can do to further their career?

James Holster [: 00:14:31

Find a trade school. There's trade schools all over America now. I mean, when I graduated, that wasn't the case. There wasn't a lot of trade schools in 2003. It wasn't a normal thing. Everyone's still pushing. You go to college, you don't go to college, it's bad. You don't go to college, it's bad.

James Holster [: 00:14:43

Like, no, it's not bad. Just means you have a different path. So find yourself a good trade school. The US Navy is probably the best trade school. You're Going to find out there. Every civilian job has an equivalent in the US Navy or the military in general. There's welders in the army, there's welders in the Marine Corps, there's welders in the Air Force. Every one of those departments of military have a support structure, have to.

James Holster [: 00:15:04

Someone's got to maintain the power plant. Someone's got to maintain, you know, the ship's engines. Well, that transfers to the outside where you can go work on a nuclear power plant or you can go work on a conventional power plant. There's training there if you really want it.

Andrew Brown [: 00:15:14

Yeah, the trade school aspect, there's so many options out there today. You look at the difference and I always compare the difference of a college route, four year college degree versus going to trade school and it's either path is for the right person. There's a lot of kids today looking at that trades path and I see it more and more today and I think a lot has to do with social media where people today who are welders, electricians, if you look on TikTok, you're on Instagram, you see a day in the life of a welder and I look at people, I don't know if you know, Barbie the welder, inspirational people like that who are really putting it out there. How big do you think social media has played in the trades?

James Holster [: 00:15:57

It's more probably. I've seen a lot more people be interested in welding and people coming to me ask me questions all the time. I don't have a huge social media outpour but you know, I know people who will ask me. Some of the kids my kids go to school with will ask me, hey, what do you know about welding? Oh, I know quite a bit about welding. What do you want to know? So I kind of steer them in the right path of how to pick up more information. I mean there's plenty of YouTube channels out there that will teach you how to weld or basic metallurgy and things you're going to want to learn when you're going to start picking up that stinger and start going to town.

Andrew Brown [: 00:16:26

Do you think it's possible to not go to trade school and learn on your own and be successful? Or do you think trade school was really, you should go to trade school?

James Holster [: 00:16:34

There's plenty of people who have done it on their own who have I watched just be naturally gifted welders, especially when I was a, we'd get guys who were undesignated, want to learn to weld, they'd Come before they even go to school. And you'd watch them do it. You're like, how long you've been welding? I just picked up like two days ago. Naturally gifted. So that's great. If you're naturally gifted, run with it. Trade school is a great option. If you're not that option.

James Holster [: 00:16:56

If you're not sure, trade school is a good place to figure it out.

Andrew Brown [: 00:16:59

Yeah, you can test and try different things. And look, even if you go down the route of welding, maybe it's just that portion, maybe that's not for you. Maybe you want to be a plumber, maybe you want to be an electrician. It really depends. But I think that the trades as a whole really gives you the ability to work with your hands. You're building infrastructure. It's this sense of fulfillment. And you can really climb the ladder of success if you really put the time energy into it.

Andrew Brown [: 00:17:27

How important is it to get around mentors, people who are X amount of years ahead of you to help you through or guide you through whatever trade you want to be in?

James Holster [: 00:17:38

It's very important because that's gonna be the person you're run to when you're having problems. When certain wells are just beating you up, whether it be, you know, we're welding the overhead aluminum or you're welding uphill on steel with smaw, you're going to have someone who knows more. It's really important, have somebody to be able to ask because they've done it, you haven't done it yet. And you got to get that knowledge from somebody. It's probably pretty significant. And having a mentor maybe help you steer clear of some of those pitfalls of maybe the bad habits you'll see some people do. I had a couple good chiefs when I was in the Navy who absolutely steered me in the right direction. They didn't let me go down that wrong path of doing things the quick and easy way and doing things the right way.

James Holster [: 00:18:18

They knew, yeah, you could do it that way, but it's not the right way to do that. That integrity you sometimes need to have and they kind of push that like, hey, do the right thing even when they're not there.

Andrew Brown [: 00:18:29

And also getting around, obviously the right people, you want to make sure that whoever is helping you out knows exactly what they're doing. But it can also, if you get around the right person, can cut that time in half for you where you're trying to struggle by yourself, you're trying to kind of figure it out. I always found that getting around somebody who's successful in what you want to be. Like you're not reinventing the wheel. Like somebody has kind of done that, right. It's getting around the right people and you'd be very surprised. I think the hardest thing, to be honest, is asking for help. A lot of people just say, ah, you know, I'm going to do it myself.

Andrew Brown [: 00:19:03

And asking help is the hardest thing. But once you do, it really opens up a lot of opportunity. Didn't know it was even there.

James Holster [: 00:19:09

I mean, I couldn't agree more. I worked with a really great engineer here for when I was working on Blue Ghost. He came in fresh out of college. He was ex army guy, you know, didn't know much about welding, but he would damn sure you know, help me try to find the answer. So that positive attitude that let's see if we can do this better attitude, like he was a great person to work with. I had so much fun working with him. So that really kind of helped make it not work, but make it more fun. So it really wasn't work coming in here every day dwell Blue Ghost.

James Holster [: 00:19:36

It was a lot of fun.

Andrew Brown [: 00:19:37

You know, you hit the nail right on the head. It's some people look at and they say, well, what am I going to make and how much money? What's the return? People don't say, like, you know, I'm really passionate about this. This is exciting. Like this is what I love to do. And I can tell you love what you do. You're in your place, this is what you love to do. Eventually, hopefully the financial side comes along with it. But you gotta be happy and excited because if you're going to work and you're just not happy with what you do, it's hard to get up every morning and do that.

James Holster [: 00:20:08

The engineers here and the other welders and technicians that are here, make it not work. Make it. Hey, me and my friends are going to build a rocket. We're going to build moon lander today. So it's not work. You know, you don't notice your. Oh man, it's 9:00. I got here at 7 this morning.

James Holster [: 00:20:21

We got to get out of here. You and the guys there, you're just killing the whole thing and you don't even notice it's work.

Andrew Brown [: 00:20:30

Now, the tools of the trade. Before we leave the studio today, what is one of your special tools of the trade that you believe has made the biggest impact on your career and how you got to where you got to today?

James Holster [: 00:20:46

Probably continuing my learning on what I'm doing, you know, not just trying to get better at work, but going outside of work and doing research and getting a hold of some people who have done this and try to get, you know, pick their brain. Because it makes my job easier the more I know and the more tricks I can pick up from other welders and other professionals. That's the key that's going to make you a successful welder.

Andrew Brown [: 00:21:06

And that's great advice. Never stay stagnant. Always keep learning, keep reading, get around different people. That's how you continue to grow. I feel like once you stop growing, it's like that's it. Like you should continue to learn and experience and that's what you're doing and that's what you should be doing.

James Holster [: 00:21:23

Absolutely. You don't want to get bored with life. You want to be excited by what you do. You want to love what you do. Otherwise you're not doing the right thing.

Andrew Brown [: 00:21:30

That's great words to live by. James. If we want to find out more information about you or Firefly Aerospace, where do they go?

James Holster [: 00:21:37

Firefly Aerospace website will have any updates to come out. I know they have a YouTube channel I believe, so it should be where you find more of the information out.

Andrew Brown [: 00:21:45

James, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. Thanks for coming on.

James Holster [: 00:21:48

Thank you for having me, and thank.

Andrew Brown [: 00:21:50

You to our listeners. If you're looking for a dynamic keynote speaker to elevate your next event, head over to andrewbrown.net and review some of my speaking topics. Trades awareness, career exploration, advocacy and addressing the trade shortage. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss another episode. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Lost Art of the Skilled Trade. Visit us@AndrewBrown.net for more resources and tips. Join us next time for real stories and meaningful initiatives as we celebrate our men and women in the skilled trades and shape the future together.