{"id":323,"date":"2012-12-17T14:55:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T14:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/2012\/12\/17\/character-reference-spacexs-molly-soule\/"},"modified":"2013-06-30T19:43:20","modified_gmt":"2013-06-30T19:43:20","slug":"character-reference-spacexs-molly-soule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/2012\/12\/17\/character-reference-spacexs-molly-soule\/","title":{"rendered":"Character Reference: SpaceX’s Molly Soule"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania newspaper<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“SpaceX, a rocket and spacecraft design company based in Los Angeles, hired Liverpool native Molly Soule to help weld together vehicles capable of inter-planetary travel \u2014 enabling future generations the opportunity to live on Mars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been really fascinated with aerospace,\u201d Soule said. \u201cAnd SpaceX\u2019s main mission is to occupy Mars and to make it affordable to have regular people live there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t space travel that encouraged Soule, 20, to pursue welding. It was motorcycles.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy fascination with motorcycles and cars really got me pumped on working with my hands,\u201d Soule said. \u201cI thought welding would be great a way to get involved with stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That passion, she says, led her into Keith Hammond\u2019s welding shop at Cumberland Perry Area Vocational Tech School three years ago.<\/p>\n

Hammond says Soule, one of two women in the class, not only impressed, but she also dominated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a male-dominated field, but she excelled,\u201d he said. \u201cShe just rose above everybody else with her grades and work ethic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soule mastered tungsten inert-gas welding (TIG) during her three years under Hammond\u2019s instruction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was extraordinary about Molly was her TIG welding skills,\u201d Hammond said. \u201cTIG welding is very hard, and you have to have good hand-eye coordination.\u201d<\/p>\n

TIG welding uses an arc of electricity that jumps from a tungsten metal electrode to the intended weld surface, which is often comprised of aluminum or steel. The process proves ideal for welding round or curvy objects, such as motorcycle frames.<\/p>\n

When compared to traditional stick welding, TIG welding creates cleaner, more precise seams between objects because no filler metal is applied to fuse objects together.<\/p>\n

Soule says she prefers the complexity of TIG welding and its usefulness when constructing motorcycle chassis (frames).<\/p>\n

\u201cI really grew in the weld shop at vo-tech,\u201d she said. \u201cMr.Hammond allowed me to demonstrate my skills and really encouraged me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soule graduated in June and took a job TIG welding at Henchcraft Racing Products in Newport.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe turned down a higher-paying job because she wanted to focus on her TIG welding,\u201d Hammond said.<\/p>\n

The decision, he says, ultimately landed her the position at SpaceX.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania newspaper: “SpaceX, a rocket and spacecraft design company based in Los Angeles, hired Liverpool native Molly Soule to help weld together vehicles capable of inter-planetary travel \u2014 enabling future generations the opportunity to live on Mars. \u201cI\u2019ve always been really fascinated with aerospace,\u201d Soule said. \u201cAnd SpaceX\u2019s main mission is to occupy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-characters","category-spacex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1021,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/1021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/factualfiction.com\/marsartists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}