Lexington grad helps launch Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Greg Rhodes stood on the beach and watched his dream go up in flames.

It was everything he could have hoped for.

The rocket Rhodes helped create was airborne. Blue Origin’s New Glenn pierced the atmosphere, leaving only a trail of smoke and violet-sapphire beam of light behind.

Even now, the Lexington High School graduate gets emotional thinking about that moment on Jan. 16 — the one he and his co-workers had toiled away toward for seven years.

It was the second time he’d watched a new rocket model he worked on blast off.

“The first launch of a new vehicle, that almost never happens,” Rhodes said.

“Some people go their whole careers with this never happening. I got to do it twice in 12 months, which was really special.”

Rhodes is a propulsion test engineer for Blue Origin, a space technology company founded by Amazon creator Jeff Bezos. He specializes in BE4 engines.

BE4s run on a combination of liquified oxygen and liquid natural gas, which Rhodes said is cleaner and more cost-effective than traditional rocket fuel.

According to its website, Blue Origin’s mission is to “build a road to space” through safe, low-cost rockets with reusable components.

“Blue Origin envisions a time when people can tap into the limitless resources of space and enable the movement of damaging industries into space to preserve Earth, humanity’s blue origin,” according to the company website.

Rhodes credits Lexington High School math teachers with instilling confidence

Rhodes graduated from Lexington High School in 2011. After that, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Ohio State University in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering.

Rhodes credited two Lexington High School math teachers — Steve Lifer and Todd Korbas — for having a large impact on his career trajectory.

“I always felt a bit of a connection with both of them as they are both from Shelby, Ohio, the same hometown as my parents and grandparents,” Rhodes said.

“I really credit them and their classes for giving me the confidence going into a math-heavy major like engineering that I would be able to understand and succeed.”

During his college days, Rhodes focused on commercial aircraft. He hadn’t given rockets much thought until he was nearly finished with grad school and a friend contacted him about a job opening at Blue Origin.

“One of my buddies texted me, ‘Hey, we have this job opening testing rocket engines out here. Do you want to come do that instead?'” Rhodes recalled. “I was like, ‘Yeah, that sounds cool.'”

Rhodes learned on-the-job

Rhodes arrived in the tiny town of Van Horn, Texas, in the summer of 2018 to begin his career with Blue Origin.

Van Horn is home to just 1,941 people, according to the most recent available data from the United States Census, compared to 4,848 residents in Lexington.

“It’s two hours east of El Paso in the middle of nowhere,” Rhodes said. “It’s two hours to a grocery store.”

Rhodes lived in Van Horn for three years — longer than most Blue Origin engineers opt to stay.

“I doubled the average tenure just because I thought it was so fun and all the people there were great,” Rhodes said. “The camaraderie is so good because the only people in that town are your other employees.”

Rhodes’ career began with a lengthy period of on-the-job training.

“I had a lot more to learn than probably some other people that focused on rockets throughout their entire college career,” Rhodes said.

“You had basically no responsibilities when you first got there. Nothing was expected of you. You weren’t allowed to do anything by yourself,” he added.

“You would basically get assigned to somebody and you would shadow them. They would teach you and after so many rotations, you would do it while they watched.”

Blue Origin aims for reusable rockets

Rhodes worked a normal shift the day before New Glenn launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

On Jan. 16, Rhodes walked out to the beach just before 1 a.m. to watch New Glenn’s ascent. A boat strayed into the restricted zone, which pushed the launch time to 2 a.m. He went back to his hotel room, but adrenaline kept him awake. He stared at the ceiling. He watched the livestream on his phone. 

He returned to the beach about an hour later, streaming the live communications from the rocket in one earbud and a livestream of the launch in the other.

“It took off so slowly,” he recalled. “We just crawled off the pad and I was so nervous. Then of course, as it burns propellant, it gets a little bit faster and starts to go.”

New Glenn is Blue Origin’s first and only orbital rocket to date, Rhodes said. The rocket is much larger than Blue Origin’s flagship, New Shepard, which can take between five and six passengers for a brief trip to space.

“You could put that whole New Shepard rocket in the payload of New Glenn, so this is one of the largest rockets to ever fly,” Rhodes said.

The company’s ultimate goal for New Glenn is to have the back portion of the rocket (called the first stage) return to Earth for reuse.

Rhodes said that for orbital spacecraft, the first stage typically detaches and crash lands back into the ocean. Scientists at Blue Origin are working towards creating a first stage that can land on a barge and be transported back to shore.

That didn’t happen during New Glenn’s early morning launch last month, but Blue Origin officials didn’t let it dim their excitement.

“We knew landing our booster, So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance, on the first try was an ambitious goal,” CEO Dave Limp said in a press release. “We’ll learn a lot from today and try again at our next launch this spring.”

The rest of the rocket will continue orbiting Earth indefinitely.

Rhodes’ advice to aspiring rocket scientists: Get as much hands on experience as possible

Rhodes’ advice to aspiring rocket scientists is to get involved in clubs that provide hands-on activities.

During his time at Ohio State, Rhodes worked in the university’s jet-propulsion lab.

“You don’t need to go to a big-name fancy school to get into this type of role. I’m not saying you shouldn’t. You get a lot of great experiences. Some of them have better labs than others. But you don’t need to go to a big-name engineering school to get into this,” Rhodes said.

“Companies that want to hire young engineers … they want to see … Can you use instrumentation? Do you know how to hold a wrench? Can you demonstrate what you’ve learned in the classroom and put it in practice?”