Ryan Callahan (Creator, Project KegRocket)

Jim sits down with Ryan Callahan, the engineer behind KegRocket, to talk about how a side project turned into one of the most fun and approachable takes on amateur rocketry. Ryan walks through his journey from flying Estes rockets as a kid to building liquid rockets in college, working at Blue Origin, and eventually deciding to build a real liquid fueled rocket out of beer kegs in his spare time. They get into why hands-on experience beats perfect resumes, how tight budgets and weird constraints actually spark better ideas, and what it really takes to design, test, and launch a liquid rocket outside of a massive aerospace program. It’s a conversation about learning by doing, balancing a demanding day job with ambitious side projects, and why chasing what genuinely excites you often leads to the best results.