Ryan Callahan, creator of KegRocket, joins Jim to share how childhood Estes rockets, college liquid propulsion teams, and a career at Blue Origin led him to build a real liquid fueled rocket out of beer kegs. Working within the limitations of thin stainless kegs, tight budgets, and garage scale tooling, Ryan explains how constraints drive creativity, why hands-on projects matter, how side builds sharpen real engineering skills, and why chasing what genuinely excites you often leads to the most meaningful work.
In this episode of Just Gonna Send It, Jim Belosic sits down with Ryan Callahan, the builder behind KegRocket. What started as a fun idea turned into a real engineering challenge: a liquid fueled rocket built using actual beer kegs as tanks. Ryan shares how college rocketry shaped his career, why tight constraints often lead to better designs, and what it takes to keep a long running passion project moving forward.
KegRocket was designed to feel approachable. Ryan wanted something anyone could look at and immediately get curious about, even without an aerospace background. Using beer kegs is both the joke and the rule. Once you commit to the keg, the entire design has to respect its limits, forcing creativity instead of spending your way out of problems.
Ryan’s interest began with Estes rockets and grew in college as student liquid propulsion teams were gaining momentum. At San Diego State, access to industry mentors and nearby aerospace companies helped turn student projects into real hardware. Flying a vintage LR101 engine gave hands-on experience with liquid oxygen, testing, and the messy realities of real rockets.
Ryan explains why modern space companies care more about what you have built than your GPA. Rocket teams, shop time, and testing real hardware matter most. Jim connects this to manufacturing, where CAD only matters once you have to make the part, fix it, and ship it.
After college, Ryan joined Blue Origin, starting on the shop floor building propulsion hardware before moving into design. That experience shaped how he thinks about engineering credibility. Time spent building teaches you what fails in the real world, and that knowledge carries into better design decisions later.
KegRocket began as a creative release. Ryan missed the fast iteration and hands on learning of college projects, where mistakes are part of the process instead of catastrophic failures. The kegs give the project a fun hook, but the real value is the constraint. Thin walled tanks limit pressure, forcing deliberate and thoughtful engineering choices.
The rocket is mostly built and entering the testing phase. Next steps include cryogenic testing with liquid nitrogen, a full dress rehearsal, a static fire, and eventually a launch attempt. At this stage, logistics are just as challenging as engineering, especially moving hardware and cryogenic oxidizer to the desert on a tight budget.
Even after years of work, the ambition keeps growing. If KegRocket flies, the question becomes how far it can go. Ryan even jokes about the ultimate outcome: an amateur liquid rocket space shot built around beer kegs, proving how far creativity, persistence, and community can take you.
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.
