October 29, 2025 • 34 mins
Rocket Lab is on the brink of turning 20 – and what began as one man’s dream in an Invercargill garage is now a Nasdaq-listed global space business valued at over NZ$50 billion.
In the latest episode of The Business of Tech, Sir Peter Beck joins me from Rocket Lab’s headquarters in Long Beach, California, to reflect on the company’s remarkable two decades of innovation and persistence – and how Rocket Lab continues to push the limits of what’s possible.
A new book The Launch of Rocket Lab, which I authored, was released this week and captures that journey – from those early days in the corner of Industrial Research Ltd. in Auckland, to a highlight reel of 75 orbital missions.
But the creation of Rocket Lab was actually fuelled by disillusionment. A visit to NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in early 2006 convinced Beck that his dream of working for those bastions of aerospace innovation would never become a reality. It wasn’t just that the self-taught engineer from New Zealand didn’t have the credentials to land a job there. He wasn’t overly impressed at what he saw. On the flight back to New Zealand, he took a napkin and started writing up his plans for his own rocket company.
Lean, fast, and fearless
Three years later, he achieved success with Ātea-1, the small sounding rocket launched from Great Mercury Island in 2009 that proved Rocket Lab could build and fly a vehicle on a shoestring budget.
“It was relief more than anything,” Beck admits. “We’d worked so hard to get to that moment. You can test as much as you can, but you’re never sure of the outcome. That first launch gave us credibility to come to the States and start doing real work,” he told me.
That mindset – lean, fast, and fearless – has remained a constant. “When you start from nothing, and you have no resources, you never forget that,” Beck said. “It’s hard to get lazy or rich and happy when everyone’s always on the bleeding edge, making sure we extract the most from the minimum amount of capital.”
That culture has fuelled two decades of technical firsts. Rocket Lab was the first company to put a carbon-composite rocket in orbit, the first to use electric turbopumps, and the first to reach space with a 3D‑printed engine. “Those things are now standard practice,” Beck said, “but back then, we were certainly leaning forward on the technology.”
Launch Complex 1 - still going strong
Mahia Peninsula, where Rocket Lab’s private launch site was built, remains central to that story – and close to Beck’s heart. “It’s the best launch site in the world, hands down. For so many reasons. One, it’s the most beautiful, and two, we get more inclination options than anywhere else,” he explained.
The relationship with local landowners and communities began, appropriately for Rocket Lab, in low-key fashion.
“We met the chiefs of the trust who owned the land at a doughnut shop,” Beck said. “It’s great to be part of that community.”
While the Electron rocket, which debuted in 2017, put Rocket Lab on the map, missions like CAPSTONE – which sent a small NASA satellite on a slingshot path to the Moon – showed how far the company’s ambition extended. “It was an engineering marvel,” Beck said.
“We used a tiny rocket and an even smaller spacecraft, measured everything down to the gram, and pulled off something everyone thought could only be done with a big rocket.”
Neutron’s disruptive potential
Now attention is turning to Neutron, Rocket Lab’s medium-lift reusable rocket designed to compete head-on with SpaceX, which Beck is preparing for launch, potentially before the end of the year. “There’s one dominant player in medium-class launch, and having competition is important,” Beck said. “Neutron looks different from any rocket that’s ever been built. That’s because we had the luxury of a clean sheet – applying everything we learned from Electron.”
As Rocket Lab heads into its third decade, Beck is thinking not just about rockets but about New Zealand’s place in the trillion‑dollar global space economy.
“Depending on whose report you read, it’ll be between US$1.4 and $2 trillion by 2035,” he said.
“There’s no reason New Zealand can’t have a bigger slice. It’s my job to make sure we get the biggest piece of that pie possible.”
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Business of Tech, powered by two Degrees Business.
I'm your host, Peter Griffin, and this week there's a
big week for me. My first book is being published.
It's very exciting. I spent my whole career banging out articles, features, podcasts,
a book chapter here or there, a bit of ghostwriting.
(00:23):
But finally I've got my name on the cover off
a book and it feels great. The book is called
The Launch of rocket Lab. It's a collaboration between Rocket Lab,
which commissioned the book to mark its twentieth anniversary, which
is coming up early next year, and Wonderful Aukland publisher
at Blackwell Ruth, which has a string of quality book
(00:46):
projects to its name. HarperCollins is involved distributing the book
here in New Zealand and around the world. It's a
coffee table book. It looks amazing, crammed with photos from
the Rocket Lab archives as well as beautiful graph of
the electron and neutron rockets and all the Rocket Labs
spacecraft they've created over the years, plus my words and
(01:08):
interviews with a host of Rocket Lab engineers, executives and
outside observers.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It's turned out to be good timing for the book launch.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Interest in rocket Lab has exploded since I wrote the
book late last year and into January February. That's actually
one of the pitfalls of writing a book. I've discovered
there's such a long lead time in the book publishing
world that so much has changed since the launch of
rocket Lab actually was put to bed and went to
the printers. The value of the company, which is listed
(01:38):
on the Nasdaq Exchange, has jumped to north of fifty
billion New Zealand dollars, making it the most valuable New
Zealand founded publicly traded company. The share price has been
yo yoing around fifty five US dollars with the high
of nearly seventy dollars, so a lot of volatility there,
but you know, five hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
In the last year. It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
The company isn't profitable yet, but has been buoyed by
analysts upgrading their share price targets on the back of
new deals won by rocket Lab, healthy revenue growth this
year and.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Projected into the future.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
But the buzz around the company really is very much
about the anticipation for Neutron, the new medium lift rocket
that the company has been developing and which will allow
it to take on SpaceX's Falcon nine. In the launch industry,
SpaceX effectively has a monopoly on regular commercial launches for
(02:34):
larger payloads. There are a few other players, but they by
and large are the big one dominating the industry. And
you've got Rocket Lab doing the smaller launches up to
seventy three or seventy four launches now. So people are
waking up to the fact that Neutron, if successful, could
change the dynamics and the entire space industry. Rocket Labs
(02:55):
set a deadline for itself off the end of twenty
twenty five to complete it's made in law of Neutron.
Will they make it look I really don't know, Sirpeter
Beck says. They'll be working to the last day of
December to try and get the launch away. But this
is rocketry. It's complicated. There are a lot of moving parts.
Deadlines can slip, So if it pushes into twenty twenty six,
(03:16):
so be it. I recorded this episode with Sir Peter
Beck a couple of weeks ago when he was in
the thick of it in the US with his team
working on the rocket, working on the launch details. It's
a pretty intense time for the company, but a good
time also to reflect on the milestones that have led
to this very point, which Supreeda really sees as just
the first phase off rocket Lab, which is why he
(03:40):
suggested let's call it the launch of rocket Lab. He
sees the company being around for decades to come, with
a lot more innovation to come as well. So Electron
has really laid the foundation for the next, maybe the
middle phase of the company. So here's my chat with
Sir Peter reflecting on those twenty years and how he
(04:01):
maintains the intensity and ambition that have been integral to
rocket lab success. Stick around at the end, I'll give
you my key takeaway. What has stayed with me having
written this book and what it has in terms of
wider relevance to New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Still it up some businesses.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Trying to take on the world. Here's rocket Lab, Sir
Peter Beck.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
So, Peter, welcome to the business of tech. How are
you doing.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I'm doing well there.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
You know, this book, The Launch of rocket Lab, is
coming out this week. Incredible photos there, three hundred pages.
You know, it's a beautiful product. You know, the honor
really of interviewing you and a lot of your engineers
and key executives for their perspectives on it the first time.
I think that so many of those perspectives have really
been gathered in one place, so many milestones over twenty years.
(04:57):
I guess it was about now twenty years ago that
you took that trip to the US, you know, went
around all the places you thought you wanted to work at,
places like NASA Jet Propulsional Laboratory, came away a bit disillusioned,
got on that plane back to New Zealand, and then
we're thinking, Okay, I don't want to work for them.
I want to build and launch rockets. I'm going to
(05:19):
have to do it myself.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Yeah, well that's the history. And you know it's great too.
It's great to have a you know, a book. I
think you know, it's always frustrated. And I'm sure you know,
when there's there's like twenty years of stories, you can
make a book like one hundred times bigger than the
one that you did. So it's always it's always kind
of difficult to just pick out the stories. And then
you know, as as you as you were interviewing myself
(05:42):
and I know some of the others. It's like there's
so many you know, you prompted for so many memories.
So I think the book is kind of like a
highlights reel. But ye's certainly a tremendous number of milestones,
as you say, and anecdotes on the way through.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, in those early days, I think it is particularly interesting.
You were working at Industrial Research at the time. You know,
you've done a number of jobs. The Fisher and Pikel
experience was really fundamental to building on your engineering skills.
And then yeah, literally, you know Shaan O'Donnell, you know
who's still with Rocket Lab twenty years later, going to
him outside Industrial Research one day and saying, hey, do
(06:22):
you want to come and work with me designing and
building rockets? That was the genesis of it.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Yeah, it's right, yeah, yeah, no, kind of the initial
team is largely still intact within the company, and as
we've grown and acquired companies and scaled, it's you know,
it's been imperative to keep that same culture of those
very early days running through the company.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
That's one of the things that struck me about it
is some of those people, and some of them were
not you know, they were not from an aerospace background.
Some of them came as graduates out of university because
literally you weren't allowed to hire people from the US
aerospace industry. So what struck me is about how many
of those people are still around in such a fast
paced you know, basically startup as twenty years old, but
(07:07):
the pace at which you move you think would burn
people out.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But a lot of those key people are still there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Yeah, I mean, you know, you have to be very
resilient to work at Rocket Lab, and that's the case
in point. But I mean, I think the work is
still incredibly fulfilling and exciting, and you know, if you
really love what you're doing and you get to work
on the most cool stuff in the world and in
the industry, it's not really work anymore, is it. So
(07:33):
I think that's you know, that's why people can endure
it for so long.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I remember researching book, just going back looking at some
of those videos of you at the time, particularly that
one I love a three News clip I few on
Great Mercury Island, just the thrill, the excitement of that
first launch of r T one, a small step on
the way to electron But what are your memories of
that moment.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Well, I mean relief more than anything, because you know,
would work so hard to get to that, to get
to that moment, and you never really know. You can
test as much as you can test, but you really
know you're not sure of the outcome. So, you know,
tremendous relief and excitement because that that was really, you know,
the beginning of the story. Not it was an important
(08:20):
master but really that was the one thing that we
did that gave us enough credibility to you know, to
come to the States and you start doing real work.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I spoke to thend Cosler, one of your first major
funders at the time. A lot of big risks you
took there in your approach to actually getting the money
to allow you to take the next steps to build
the rocket you actually wanted to build. But you came
away with what five million dollars initially from Kosler Ventures,
(08:50):
and then built on that relatively quickly. I guess, you know,
it's it's pretty cool that a lot of those investors
stayed with you through the bulk of years and and
then joined you in the Nasdaq listing as well.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think the risk was was
far greater for the node than than I. He took
the risk there. You know, it was I was a
KEEPI engineer with never run a company before, and from
a country that had no space industry. And yeah, so
I think I think, you know, all credit to the
no but that's that's kind of you know, the way
he rolled and but you know, it's it's it was
(09:26):
five million dollars. Was like it seemed like an infinite
fund at that point, given the you know, the scale
of the investment we've had prior to that, and we
got a tremendous amount done for that that five million dollars.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And you know, we fast forward today and New Zealand dollars.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
You know, the market cap of the company is around
about fifty billion, So you know, I did well from
his his investment.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
It just shows you that, you know, the scale and
the growth of the company from you know, from it's
hundred beginning.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And as he pointed out when I spoke to him,
and as you've reinforced yourself when you went to the
US and saw the aerospace industry, just the scale of
waste essentially you know just how much money it costs
them to do things that you were doing for tens
of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, even when
you went out to the Mohave Desert and seeing where
(10:21):
they've got a grant from million dollars, what they actually
produced and what you were able to produce, And that
discipline has extended all the way through even to Neutron,
where your your total cost is something like three hundred
and fifty million, that would be a multi billion dollar
project from the typical aerospace industry.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, that's right, Yes, it's a good point.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Like I mean, you know, the most recent traditional rocket
program was something like ten years of development and seven
billion dollars. So yeah, four or five years for the
Neutron and t fifty million is as you say, it's
a stark difference, and you know speaks to the company
(10:59):
and kind of you know, approach throughout the company has
been consistent. And I think when you start from nothing
and you have no resources.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Then you never forget that.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
And I think it's very difficult to to kind of well,
at least within within the company, and you know, it's
very difficult to get kind of you know, fat, rich
and happy. It's like everybody is always you know, always
on the bleeding edge of you know, making sure we
extract the maximum amount of effort and results from the
(11:28):
minimum amount of capital.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, and that bleeding edge is a section and book
where we beautiful graphics off the you know, the schemas
of you know, the rather fit engine, the electron rocket,
and that those bleeding edge innovations that you were able
to pull off with very little money and the wisdom
of a small team, the carbon fiber composites, the three
(11:52):
D printing off the electron engine, which is still fundamental
technologies that underpin all of your electron rockets today and
will underpen neutron as well.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, that's right, and you know, we were the leader
and a lot of those technologies. You know, we're the
first company to put a carbon composite rocket into orbit.
We're the first company to do electric turbo pumps, and
as you say, the first company to put a three
D printed engine in space and their loan orbit and
those things now are standard practice. I mean there's I
don't think there's anybody building, you know, a modern rocket
(12:24):
engine today that that doesn't you know, three D print
elements of it.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
But at the time we were certainly leaning forward on
the technology.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
But that's always been the I guess the ethoss of
the company as well is we're not afraid to push
forward on new new kind of barriers, you know, new
processes and new new kind of technical barriers. If we
can see, if we can see a payoff for a
piece of technology, then you know, we're early technology adopts
(12:51):
that in that respect.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I think you're you're coming up to your seventy third
launch or something like that, just incredible. Probably still the
most successful track record off rocket launches to date for
a commercial company, if not for any sort of organization,
just in terms of the successful launches and delivery to
orbit of off satellites. That really comes I think back
(13:15):
to your precision approach. You value high quality, You demand
a lot of people. How do you sustain that over
twenty years without collapsing in a sweaty mess.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Well, I mean it's kind of you know, self fulfilling
in a lot of respects, because the people that come
to rocket Lab want to build beautiful hardware.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
That works and not just works, but it works beautifully.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
And so I think you know, if you turn up
at rocket Lab and you built something that looks ugly
or you know, is not well engineered. It gets called
out really really quickly because you know, we've assembled a
group of people here that have tremendous passion and pride
in what they do. And to be fair, if anybody
(14:02):
presents a piece of hardware that doesn't look good and
I see it, they know about it real quick. So
you know, it doesn't take much kind of much kind
of alignment to be honest with you, but you know,
the alignment is swift, so you know, it's it's pretty
easy to keep the keep the quality of the products
(14:24):
high because people, you know, that's why people come here.
They don't come here to build a look and rubbish.
They come here to build the most most beautiful things.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, that filters people out pretty quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
One of my favorite images in the book is I
think it's the Center Spread, which is this stunning photo
of Mahia Peninsula. And it was really great, you know,
talking to you and your colleagues about the hunt for
the perfect place to launch rockets from in New Zealand.
You were looking down in the Canterbury region for a while.
You settled on Mahia. A beautiful story of how you
(14:56):
sort of build a relationship with that community on the
Maha there, so Michael Fay was was important and broaching
that relationship as well.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
Yeah, I know, it's a funny old beginning because we
we if you look at the country and you think
about one of the ideal places to launch from, you know,
the bit that's sticking out the east is you know,
is obviously the best bit, and you know, trying to
make contact with their owners and the shareholders of.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
That land ultimately, Yeah, I mean we were lucky.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Michael Fay had a farm down that way and we
met the you know, the the chiefs of the you know,
of the trust who owned the land at a donut
shop of all places, and and so no, it was
you know, it's been a great time and it's it's
it's great to be in that community.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, and great that Mahia is still a power house
really for rocket Lab, but still where the majority of
launches are done. That might change over time, but it's
still really fit for purpose, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
I mean it's it is the best launch slide in
the world, hands down, for so many reasons. And when
one of the most beautiful, and two we get the
most amount of inclination out of any launch side in
the world.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
It's you know, it's truly a special place.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, twenty seventeen. Obviously your first launch if Electron high stakes, though,
wasn't it. I mean you said, we've got one on
the pad, I think two in the shed. If that
one blows up, you run out pretty quickly, so off
money and rockets. So take us back to how you
(16:28):
felt sort of going into that first launch.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Well, I mean, it's all a bit of a blur,
to be honest with you, because it just, you know,
perhaps I've blocked some of it out because it was painful,
but we're all working crazy hard. But we put that
rocket on the pad with you know, at least a
ninety percent success rate that we that we felt that
it was going to be successful. So I said to
the whole team, you know, in the in the final
(16:52):
kind of months leading up to the launch, that we're
not going to put something on the pad that doesn't
have at least a ninety percent chance of success. So
if you're up system, your component, your software or anything
isn't you don't think it has a ninety percent probability
of success, then come and see me, and you know, well,
we'll make sure it does before we fly. So we
(17:12):
ran a pretty rigorous process and we had we you know,
from day one, we always had this process where if
anybody thinks that there could be an issue with the rocket,
they can create a ticket, an issue ticket, and submit it.
So it doesn't even matter if you're if you know,
you're not even working on the rocket. If you walk
past it and you think something doesn't look quite right,
you can write an issue ticket. And we made the
(17:35):
decree that we would not fly unless every issue or
risk ticket was closed. And and that's what we did. Yeah,
for a first flight, it was.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
You know, it was it was incredibly successful.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
It was a success.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Frustrating that a dodgy piece of software meant it had
to be aborted, but nothing to do with you know,
all the groundwork that you'd laid.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Yeah, well that was a great lesson because you know,
we we we had all our stuff together, but you know,
third party contractor that we were brought in who arranged
kind of safety experts didn't.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Do their due diligence.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
They didn't ask their team are they ninety percent sure
that this is all going to be good?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
And ultimately it.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
Was you know, one tick box and a line of
software code that wasn't ticked now and that was the end.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Nevertheless, you know, that launch gave the industry the confidence
to start booking flights on Electron and really that's been
the story I think of the last decade. It's just
the sheer diversity of some of the missions that you've
been involved in. The Electron has been involved and some
of the key ones are recounted in the book, but
(18:41):
just incredible stuff, you know, like for instance, Varider, you know,
which the missions you've done with Varder, which is literally
manufacturing pharmaceuticals in space to see if they can give
characteristics that are going to improve medicines. You know, that's
just a fascinating one and still evolving as well. It's
still a relationship with and that whole area of science
(19:03):
is expanding as a result of what you've done.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
I mean people know us as the rocket company, right
because the rocket always steals the show. But two thirds
of our businesses satellites and spacecraft and components and whatnot,
so you know, we've got to do the most amazing things.
I mean, the solar cells that were on the James,
We have telescope, rocket Lab cells. The Mars helicopter that
(19:26):
flew in the Mars surface some twenty times was you know,
the solar cells on top of that were rocket Labs
l of cells, and you know, these most the most
amazing missions and generally, you know a lot of the
flagship missions in the last twenty years has had all
had rocket Lab technology on board. So we we get
to play in you know, the coolest, coolest stuff and
the most demanding environments. You know, we've got a couple
(19:48):
of satellites to escapade spacecraft that are on their way
to Mars here shortly, so you know, we'll have twenty
percent of everything orbiting around Mars will be built by
rocket Lab once those two satellites arrived. So you know,
it's you back to your earlier point, Like it's it's
pretty easy to get excited about the work you do.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
As you say that, you know the reach across literally
everything that's going into space, and part of that was
these quite shrewd acquisitions you made. And you can be
a point where a company goes away where you try
to integrate acquisitions. You've got a couple more just this
year that you've sealed, so you'll be doing that again.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
But it seems to have worked quite well.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Bringing the culture off those quite specialist companies in space systems,
which is really the bulk of your revenue. Now bringing
them into the rocket Lab fold and culture, it seems
to have paid off really well.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, I mean I would say it's it's not good
like it's hard work.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
And also, you know, the companies that we look to acquire,
they had to have two fundamental things right. They had
to have the best technology in the world mission success,
the most beautiful technologies, and.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
The team had had to be able to be integrated
into Rocker Labe.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
You know, we have at least half a dozen to
a dozen acquisition targets and companies that we're looking at
at any one time. But you can see by how
many we do, you know, how kind of type the
messures in the funnel that actually actually get through. And
you know the reason for those successes have been you know,
it hasn't been a massive culture shift to go from
(21:18):
what were their fundamental core principles and beliefs prior to
the acquisition. You know, as long as they map very
closely to Rocket Lab, then it tends to work.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
So you're doing that acquisitions, integrating them, electrons, getting you know,
the process, getting better and better every time you launch,
doing interesting things with constellations and that sort of thing.
And then in the background you've got these really ambitious missions,
probably the most ambitious of which is recounted in the book,
the Capstone mission, the so called super maneuver. They're just
(21:49):
just take listeners through why that was so important to
Rocket Lab and why. Actually, all the engineers I talk to,
they all talk about Capstone as one of the highlights
of their career at Rocket lad Well.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I would say it was the most ridiculous mission that
we ever did. You know.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
We we we used an electron and a photon satellite
bus to send a small spacecraft NASA to the Moon.
And I think up until we did it, everybody's you know,
the accepted belief is that if you want to go
to the Moon, you have to do that off a
very large rocket. And you know that that is you
(22:25):
know that that has been you know, the reality and history,
and you know, for the first time we took a
tiny little rocket and a tiny little spacecraft and delivered
that all the way to the Moon. So what that
meant is the performance in the you know, the engineering
margins had to be so incredibly tight that it was ridiculous,
and you know it was it was just an engineering marvel.
(22:47):
You know, we were we were measuring everything in grams.
There was it was just everything was down to the
slimmest of margins, and not just you know, not just
the you know, the margins are avaiable, but the whole
trajectory design. You know, we used this trajectory design to
(23:08):
slingshot ourselves around the Earth and slowly build up the
energy to ultimately do a translunar injection. So you know,
we're all go to the Earth and accelerated in a slingshot,
you know, seven times until we were put on a
path to the moon.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
What's you know, really special I think about that mission
is just how you had to recalculate on the fly there,
respond to how you know things we're performing in space
and change the calculations literally overnight and then go on.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It terrifying sort of moment. But it worked.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yeah, it did better than work.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
Not only did deliver the payload exactly right down the
middle of the corridor that it needed to deliver, but
we went on with that spacecraft right out into deep space,
and for a while there we were looking like we
were going to end up doing the entire mission itself
because the NASA spacecraft.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Had you know a lot of issues in commissioning and
getting getting going to start with.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
So we actually had a maneuver that we were going
to do after we'd separated off the spacecraft and we
were going to do our own kind of deep space
and Moon aflyby and stuff. But we had to hold
that maneuver because we were following the spacecraft on its
way to the Moon and NASA spacecraft had issues, so
(24:31):
we were kind of back up, back up mission in
case they weren't. We're able to get that spacecraft to work.
Thankfully they did, and you know, the mission was a
tremendous success.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
And look that's progressing in terms of NASA putting a
space station around around the Moon and return to the Moon.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
That is all on.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
You've got other ambitions, you know obviously around MYZ you're
involved in missions there. Hopefully we'll be involved in bringing
those samples back from mys at some point. That's an
ongoing project that NASA is looking at. You've got interest
in Venus, that's a real passion project for you as well.
I guess, did Capstone really give you the confidence that, yes,
we can play beyond sending stuff into orbit, that we
(25:11):
can do interplanetary lunar missions.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
And when you get it deep into deep space, you
have to deal with a whole lot of really nasty
radiation environments and you know, navigation becomes difficult. And so
you know, the Capstone mission really set us up to,
you know, to do things like the Mars missions that
we're doing here shortly, and other missions as well, where
(25:35):
you know, it's onto the ball game to go deep
space and inteplanetary, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
So the missions roll on, Peter that the next big
milestone really is, it's been well flagged, is the launch
of your larger rocket, Neutron. You're mad at work preparing
for that at the moment. Your profile by the Wall
Street Journal recently, and you said, if you want to
build a big company, you've got to go big, and
that's the whole goal. But talk us through really how
(26:02):
you think Neutron stands to change the competitive dynamics out there,
which is really dominated by space X at the moment.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
I mean, there's one really successful and dominant player and
medium plus lift and you know, having some competition in
the market for.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
That, I think is very important.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
That's what our customers are asking and demanding. So that's
where Neutron kind of scratches at it. And you know,
it's a thirteen thousand kilogram to aubit vehicle, reusable for stage,
and you know, it's a very unique looking vehicle. It
looks very different to every other rocket that's been built today.
(26:39):
That's because we've had the luxury of getting a do
over from all of the lessons we learned from Electron
and all the lessons others have learned from their own programs,
and really, you know, having a clean sheet of paper
to design something that's that's really really optimized.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And as we go into this lot of expectation, but
the share price has had an all time high in
credible I think as we speak about fifty seven or
fifty eight dollars US. So there's a lot of interest
in this company. There are tens of thousands of local investors.
You're at Parliament recently. I saw you speak there and
the industry was basically saying, you know that we want
(27:14):
to grow by a couple of billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
You said, why don't we make that? You know, two
hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
There's a trillion dollar business out there that New Zealand
could take a big slice off. I guess it goes
back to you. If you want to be big, you
got to think big.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Well, that's right, that's right. I mean, you know you've
said it exactly right. I mean, you know the end
the industry is growing tremendously quickly and you know, depending
on whose report you want to read, it somewhere between
one point four and two trillion dollars. These are big numbers,
and you know there's there's no reason, you know, certainly
why New Zealand can't have a bigger piece. And you
(27:46):
know it's my job to make sure that we have
the biggest piece of that that part possible.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
I mean you still employ well over a thousand people
in New Zealand, yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
So it's still tough times unfortunately at the moment. But
one of the things you said there, which was remarkable,
as you know how many millionaires you made when you
listed the company. A lot of New Zealand people have
done incredibly well out of being on that journey.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Yeah, I mean the end of the whole, whole point
here is to do cool things and create value. When
you create value, you know that that's wonderful for everybody.
And you know, we've always incentivised our staff with with
with stock, and you know, it was always funny, you know,
when we started issuing staff stock, it was it was
just sort of something to sticky coffee on, and nobody
(28:30):
have thought it'd be worth any value because of course
in New Zealand, you know, share options just really aren't
really a thing. And but yeah, as a result, you know,
I think there was something when we initially went public,
there was something like one hundred and fifty million years
in New Zealand that we had created just out of start.
And you know, there was at a ten dollar stock price.
So you know, there's a lot of people done done
(28:52):
really well, which is which is awesome because you know,
we rely on our shareholders.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
We just got a ten exit. We just got to
do ten more rocket labs. And it sounds sounds easy,
but in the current environment, we sort of need a
bit of hope, don't We need to turn a corner,
and it's got to be driven by genuine growth in
the economy, not shifting around the deck chairs.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, but I mean I'm incredibly excited.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
I mean the only other thing I do outside Rocket
Lab is is sit on the investment committee for board
for Outset Ventures, which is a deep tech firm. And
you know, so lucky I get to see so many
New Zealand's deep tech startups, and so I wouldn't get
too I wouldn't get too down in the dumps. There's
I can tell you there's a few rocket Labs coming,
and you know, even just look at Holt there's another
(29:39):
billion dollar unicorn created.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
So incredible coming.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Yeah, just raise one hundred and sixty five million. So
you're absolutely right, when you know, when I get down,
I go and talk to startup founders because they don't
care about the state of the economy. They care about
as you did twenty years ago, setting out to.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Change the world.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Exactly right.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Thanks Peter, great to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Good luck for new Tron, and congratulations on the upcoming
twentieth anniversary.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Thanks so much for being on the business of tech.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Thanks better appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
So, Sir Peter Beck, there getting Neutron ready for launch.
Hopefully that will happen before year's end at Launch Complex
three at Wallops Island, Virginia, where the pad is ready
to go once the rocket is. It was a fascinating
experience writing the book, interviewing the engineers who designed the
Rutherford engines, the carbon fiber experts who went from building
(30:38):
America's cup yachts to building rocket bodies, the mission control
directors who are responsible for launches. The yes, no crucial
question are we ready to go? Hugely pressured jobs, but
they are amazing professionals, the satellite and spacecraft designers, some
of whom joined Rocket Lab as a result of those
(30:58):
acquisitions that were made. People like Vinod Kossla, the Silicon
Valley venture capitalist who gave Sir Peter the first substantial
funding injection, and even Stephen Joyce, the former government minister
who helped clear the way for launchers to take place
here in New Zealand. You know, when all it said
and done, you can rave about the innovation that happened
(31:19):
at Rocket Lab and the pioneering things they did with
three D printing and the carbon fiber and all of
that sort of stuff. There was a bit of luck
involved along the way, but more than any other New.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Zealand company I've covered in the last twenty years.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Rocket Lab really embodies that classic quote from Sir Ernest Rutherford,
our famous Nobel winner. We don't have the money, so
we have to think paraphrasing what he said. Even now,
twenty years in, Peter Beck has approached the development of
Neutron with the same sort of lean mentality he did
with the one rocket all those years ago. He's doing
(31:55):
Neutron for a fraction off the cost that you would
associate with the typical medium lift development program. You know,
his attitude still basically his hackiness, be done as cheaply
and efficiently as possible. If he can afford something, go
back to the drawing board and figure out how to
do it, make something up that will work in its place.
(32:17):
That's a discipline that was baked into him from his
early days, I think building his own rocket bikes in
the design work he did at Fisher and pikel It's
a good way to run a company, particularly a listed
company which is having to report every quarter to the
public to shareholders. It's something that I think maybe the
artificial intelligence industry could learn from at the moment, as
(32:38):
it throws eyewatering amounts of money at AI hardware, training,
large language models, even securing tech talents, spending hundreds of
millions of dollars on individual engineers. We have too many
rich companies with frankly too much cash at their disposal
going after this area of technology.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
It's going to take a.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Few more deep seek mode humans where people without the
same resources are forced to find a better way of
doing things to bring some sanity back to that whole space.
And that's really what rocket Lab has done throughout over
twenty years of innovation.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
They still have that in their DNA.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
We have to be really efficient and lean and cost
effective in doing this, and that forces innovation that forces
them to come up with better ways of doing things. Anyway,
thanks to sir Peter for coming on once again, and
thanks to you for listening. If you want to find
out more about the launch of rocket Lab, go to
my website rocketlab book dot com. There are links there
(33:36):
where you can order a copy. It's also now in bookstores,
which is pretty exciting for me to see my book
on the shelves. If you're listening to the Business of
teching your podcast app, please do leave a rating and
share the episode with your friends and check out the
show notes too at.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Business desk dot co dot nz.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
In the podcast section, you'll find my weekly reading list there.
I'll catch you again next week for another episode of
the Business of Take
Welcome to the Business of Tech, powered by two Degrees Business.
I'm your host, Peter Griffin, and this week there's a
big week for me. My first book is being published.
It's very exciting. I spent my whole career banging out articles, features, podcasts,
a book chapter here or there, a bit of ghostwriting.
(00:23):
But finally I've got my name on the cover off
a book and it feels great. The book is called
The Launch of rocket Lab. It's a collaboration between Rocket Lab,
which commissioned the book to mark its twentieth anniversary, which
is coming up early next year, and Wonderful Aukland publisher
at Blackwell Ruth, which has a string of quality book
(00:46):
projects to its name. HarperCollins is involved distributing the book
here in New Zealand and around the world. It's a
coffee table book. It looks amazing, crammed with photos from
the Rocket Lab archives as well as beautiful graph of
the electron and neutron rockets and all the Rocket Labs
spacecraft they've created over the years, plus my words and
(01:08):
interviews with a host of Rocket Lab engineers, executives and
outside observers.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
It's turned out to be good timing for the book launch.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Interest in rocket Lab has exploded since I wrote the
book late last year and into January February. That's actually
one of the pitfalls of writing a book. I've discovered
there's such a long lead time in the book publishing
world that so much has changed since the launch of
rocket Lab actually was put to bed and went to
the printers. The value of the company, which is listed
(01:38):
on the Nasdaq Exchange, has jumped to north of fifty
billion New Zealand dollars, making it the most valuable New
Zealand founded publicly traded company. The share price has been
yo yoing around fifty five US dollars with the high
of nearly seventy dollars, so a lot of volatility there,
but you know, five hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
In the last year. It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
The company isn't profitable yet, but has been buoyed by
analysts upgrading their share price targets on the back of
new deals won by rocket Lab, healthy revenue growth this
year and.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Projected into the future.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
But the buzz around the company really is very much
about the anticipation for Neutron, the new medium lift rocket
that the company has been developing and which will allow
it to take on SpaceX's Falcon nine. In the launch industry,
SpaceX effectively has a monopoly on regular commercial launches for
(02:34):
larger payloads. There are a few other players, but they by
and large are the big one dominating the industry. And
you've got Rocket Lab doing the smaller launches up to
seventy three or seventy four launches now. So people are
waking up to the fact that Neutron, if successful, could
change the dynamics and the entire space industry. Rocket Labs
(02:55):
set a deadline for itself off the end of twenty
twenty five to complete it's made in law of Neutron.
Will they make it look I really don't know, Sirpeter
Beck says. They'll be working to the last day of
December to try and get the launch away. But this
is rocketry. It's complicated. There are a lot of moving parts.
Deadlines can slip, So if it pushes into twenty twenty six,
(03:16):
so be it. I recorded this episode with Sir Peter
Beck a couple of weeks ago when he was in
the thick of it in the US with his team
working on the rocket, working on the launch details. It's
a pretty intense time for the company, but a good
time also to reflect on the milestones that have led
to this very point, which Supreeda really sees as just
the first phase off rocket Lab, which is why he
(03:40):
suggested let's call it the launch of rocket Lab. He
sees the company being around for decades to come, with
a lot more innovation to come as well. So Electron
has really laid the foundation for the next, maybe the
middle phase of the company. So here's my chat with
Sir Peter reflecting on those twenty years and how he
(04:01):
maintains the intensity and ambition that have been integral to
rocket lab success. Stick around at the end, I'll give
you my key takeaway. What has stayed with me having
written this book and what it has in terms of
wider relevance to New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Still it up some businesses.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Trying to take on the world. Here's rocket Lab, Sir
Peter Beck.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
So, Peter, welcome to the business of tech. How are
you doing.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I'm doing well there.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
You know, this book, The Launch of rocket Lab, is
coming out this week. Incredible photos there, three hundred pages.
You know, it's a beautiful product. You know, the honor
really of interviewing you and a lot of your engineers
and key executives for their perspectives on it the first time.
I think that so many of those perspectives have really
been gathered in one place, so many milestones over twenty years.
(04:57):
I guess it was about now twenty years ago that
you took that trip to the US, you know, went
around all the places you thought you wanted to work at,
places like NASA Jet Propulsional Laboratory, came away a bit disillusioned,
got on that plane back to New Zealand, and then
we're thinking, Okay, I don't want to work for them.
I want to build and launch rockets. I'm going to
(05:19):
have to do it myself.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Yeah, well that's the history. And you know it's great too.
It's great to have a you know, a book. I
think you know, it's always frustrated. And I'm sure you know,
when there's there's like twenty years of stories, you can
make a book like one hundred times bigger than the
one that you did. So it's always it's always kind
of difficult to just pick out the stories. And then
you know, as as you as you were interviewing myself
(05:42):
and I know some of the others. It's like there's
so many you know, you prompted for so many memories.
So I think the book is kind of like a
highlights reel. But ye's certainly a tremendous number of milestones,
as you say, and anecdotes on the way through.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, in those early days, I think it is particularly interesting.
You were working at Industrial Research at the time. You know,
you've done a number of jobs. The Fisher and Pikel
experience was really fundamental to building on your engineering skills.
And then yeah, literally, you know Shaan O'Donnell, you know
who's still with Rocket Lab twenty years later, going to
him outside Industrial Research one day and saying, hey, do
(06:22):
you want to come and work with me designing and
building rockets? That was the genesis of it.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Yeah, it's right, yeah, yeah, no, kind of the initial
team is largely still intact within the company, and as
we've grown and acquired companies and scaled, it's you know,
it's been imperative to keep that same culture of those
very early days running through the company.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
That's one of the things that struck me about it
is some of those people, and some of them were
not you know, they were not from an aerospace background.
Some of them came as graduates out of university because
literally you weren't allowed to hire people from the US
aerospace industry. So what struck me is about how many
of those people are still around in such a fast
paced you know, basically startup as twenty years old, but
(07:07):
the pace at which you move you think would burn
people out.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But a lot of those key people are still there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Yeah, I mean, you know, you have to be very
resilient to work at Rocket Lab, and that's the case
in point. But I mean, I think the work is
still incredibly fulfilling and exciting, and you know, if you
really love what you're doing and you get to work
on the most cool stuff in the world and in
the industry, it's not really work anymore, is it. So
(07:33):
I think that's you know, that's why people can endure
it for so long.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I remember researching book, just going back looking at some
of those videos of you at the time, particularly that
one I love a three News clip I few on
Great Mercury Island, just the thrill, the excitement of that
first launch of r T one, a small step on
the way to electron But what are your memories of
that moment.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Well, I mean relief more than anything, because you know,
would work so hard to get to that, to get
to that moment, and you never really know. You can
test as much as you can test, but you really
know you're not sure of the outcome. So, you know,
tremendous relief and excitement because that that was really, you know,
the beginning of the story. Not it was an important
(08:20):
master but really that was the one thing that we
did that gave us enough credibility to you know, to
come to the States and you start doing real work.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I spoke to thend Cosler, one of your first major
funders at the time. A lot of big risks you
took there in your approach to actually getting the money
to allow you to take the next steps to build
the rocket you actually wanted to build. But you came
away with what five million dollars initially from Kosler Ventures,
(08:50):
and then built on that relatively quickly. I guess, you know,
it's it's pretty cool that a lot of those investors
stayed with you through the bulk of years and and
then joined you in the Nasdaq listing as well.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think the risk was was
far greater for the node than than I. He took
the risk there. You know, it was I was a
KEEPI engineer with never run a company before, and from
a country that had no space industry. And yeah, so
I think I think, you know, all credit to the
no but that's that's kind of you know, the way
he rolled and but you know, it's it's it was
(09:26):
five million dollars. Was like it seemed like an infinite
fund at that point, given the you know, the scale
of the investment we've had prior to that, and we
got a tremendous amount done for that that five million dollars.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And you know, we fast forward today and New Zealand dollars.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
You know, the market cap of the company is around
about fifty billion, So you know, I did well from
his his investment.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
It just shows you that, you know, the scale and
the growth of the company from you know, from it's
hundred beginning.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And as he pointed out when I spoke to him,
and as you've reinforced yourself when you went to the
US and saw the aerospace industry, just the scale of
waste essentially you know just how much money it costs
them to do things that you were doing for tens
of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, even when
you went out to the Mohave Desert and seeing where
(10:21):
they've got a grant from million dollars, what they actually
produced and what you were able to produce, And that
discipline has extended all the way through even to Neutron,
where your your total cost is something like three hundred
and fifty million, that would be a multi billion dollar
project from the typical aerospace industry.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, that's right, Yes, it's a good point.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Like I mean, you know, the most recent traditional rocket
program was something like ten years of development and seven
billion dollars. So yeah, four or five years for the
Neutron and t fifty million is as you say, it's
a stark difference, and you know speaks to the company
(10:59):
and kind of you know, approach throughout the company has
been consistent. And I think when you start from nothing
and you have no resources.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Then you never forget that.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
And I think it's very difficult to to kind of well,
at least within within the company, and you know, it's
very difficult to get kind of you know, fat, rich
and happy. It's like everybody is always you know, always
on the bleeding edge of you know, making sure we
extract the maximum amount of effort and results from the
(11:28):
minimum amount of capital.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, and that bleeding edge is a section and book
where we beautiful graphics off the you know, the schemas
of you know, the rather fit engine, the electron rocket,
and that those bleeding edge innovations that you were able
to pull off with very little money and the wisdom
of a small team, the carbon fiber composites, the three
(11:52):
D printing off the electron engine, which is still fundamental
technologies that underpin all of your electron rockets today and
will underpen neutron as well.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, that's right, and you know, we were the leader
and a lot of those technologies. You know, we're the
first company to put a carbon composite rocket into orbit.
We're the first company to do electric turbo pumps, and
as you say, the first company to put a three
D printed engine in space and their loan orbit and
those things now are standard practice. I mean there's I
don't think there's anybody building, you know, a modern rocket
(12:24):
engine today that that doesn't you know, three D print
elements of it.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
But at the time we were certainly leaning forward on
the technology.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
But that's always been the I guess the ethoss of
the company as well is we're not afraid to push
forward on new new kind of barriers, you know, new
processes and new new kind of technical barriers. If we
can see, if we can see a payoff for a
piece of technology, then you know, we're early technology adopts
(12:51):
that in that respect.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I think you're you're coming up to your seventy third
launch or something like that, just incredible. Probably still the
most successful track record off rocket launches to date for
a commercial company, if not for any sort of organization,
just in terms of the successful launches and delivery to
orbit of off satellites. That really comes I think back
(13:15):
to your precision approach. You value high quality, You demand
a lot of people. How do you sustain that over
twenty years without collapsing in a sweaty mess.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:29):
Well, I mean it's kind of you know, self fulfilling
in a lot of respects, because the people that come
to rocket Lab want to build beautiful hardware.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
That works and not just works, but it works beautifully.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
And so I think you know, if you turn up
at rocket Lab and you built something that looks ugly
or you know, is not well engineered. It gets called
out really really quickly because you know, we've assembled a
group of people here that have tremendous passion and pride
in what they do. And to be fair, if anybody
(14:02):
presents a piece of hardware that doesn't look good and
I see it, they know about it real quick. So
you know, it doesn't take much kind of much kind
of alignment to be honest with you, but you know,
the alignment is swift, so you know, it's it's pretty
easy to keep the keep the quality of the products
(14:24):
high because people, you know, that's why people come here.
They don't come here to build a look and rubbish.
They come here to build the most most beautiful things.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, that filters people out pretty quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
One of my favorite images in the book is I
think it's the Center Spread, which is this stunning photo
of Mahia Peninsula. And it was really great, you know,
talking to you and your colleagues about the hunt for
the perfect place to launch rockets from in New Zealand.
You were looking down in the Canterbury region for a while.
You settled on Mahia. A beautiful story of how you
(14:56):
sort of build a relationship with that community on the
Maha there, so Michael Fay was was important and broaching
that relationship as well.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
Yeah, I know, it's a funny old beginning because we
we if you look at the country and you think
about one of the ideal places to launch from, you know,
the bit that's sticking out the east is you know,
is obviously the best bit, and you know, trying to
make contact with their owners and the shareholders of.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
That land ultimately, Yeah, I mean we were lucky.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Michael Fay had a farm down that way and we
met the you know, the the chiefs of the you know,
of the trust who owned the land at a donut
shop of all places, and and so no, it was
you know, it's been a great time and it's it's
it's great to be in that community.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, and great that Mahia is still a power house
really for rocket Lab, but still where the majority of
launches are done. That might change over time, but it's
still really fit for purpose, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
I mean it's it is the best launch slide in
the world, hands down, for so many reasons. And when
one of the most beautiful, and two we get the
most amount of inclination out of any launch side in
the world.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
It's you know, it's truly a special place.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, twenty seventeen. Obviously your first launch if Electron high stakes, though,
wasn't it. I mean you said, we've got one on
the pad, I think two in the shed. If that
one blows up, you run out pretty quickly, so off
money and rockets. So take us back to how you
(16:28):
felt sort of going into that first launch.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Well, I mean, it's all a bit of a blur,
to be honest with you, because it just, you know,
perhaps I've blocked some of it out because it was painful,
but we're all working crazy hard. But we put that
rocket on the pad with you know, at least a
ninety percent success rate that we that we felt that
it was going to be successful. So I said to
the whole team, you know, in the in the final
(16:52):
kind of months leading up to the launch, that we're
not going to put something on the pad that doesn't
have at least a ninety percent chance of success. So
if you're up system, your component, your software or anything
isn't you don't think it has a ninety percent probability
of success, then come and see me, and you know, well,
we'll make sure it does before we fly. So we
(17:12):
ran a pretty rigorous process and we had we you know,
from day one, we always had this process where if
anybody thinks that there could be an issue with the rocket,
they can create a ticket, an issue ticket, and submit it.
So it doesn't even matter if you're if you know,
you're not even working on the rocket. If you walk
past it and you think something doesn't look quite right,
you can write an issue ticket. And we made the
(17:35):
decree that we would not fly unless every issue or
risk ticket was closed. And and that's what we did. Yeah,
for a first flight, it was.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
You know, it was it was incredibly successful.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
It was a success.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Frustrating that a dodgy piece of software meant it had
to be aborted, but nothing to do with you know,
all the groundwork that you'd laid.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Yeah, well that was a great lesson because you know,
we we we had all our stuff together, but you know,
third party contractor that we were brought in who arranged
kind of safety experts didn't.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Do their due diligence.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
They didn't ask their team are they ninety percent sure
that this is all going to be good?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
And ultimately it.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
Was you know, one tick box and a line of
software code that wasn't ticked now and that was the end.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Nevertheless, you know, that launch gave the industry the confidence
to start booking flights on Electron and really that's been
the story I think of the last decade. It's just
the sheer diversity of some of the missions that you've
been involved in. The Electron has been involved and some
of the key ones are recounted in the book, but
(18:41):
just incredible stuff, you know, like for instance, Varider, you know,
which the missions you've done with Varder, which is literally
manufacturing pharmaceuticals in space to see if they can give
characteristics that are going to improve medicines. You know, that's
just a fascinating one and still evolving as well. It's
still a relationship with and that whole area of science
(19:03):
is expanding as a result of what you've done.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
I mean people know us as the rocket company, right
because the rocket always steals the show. But two thirds
of our businesses satellites and spacecraft and components and whatnot,
so you know, we've got to do the most amazing things.
I mean, the solar cells that were on the James,
We have telescope, rocket Lab cells. The Mars helicopter that
(19:26):
flew in the Mars surface some twenty times was you know,
the solar cells on top of that were rocket Labs
l of cells, and you know, these most the most
amazing missions and generally, you know a lot of the
flagship missions in the last twenty years has had all
had rocket Lab technology on board. So we we get
to play in you know, the coolest, coolest stuff and
the most demanding environments. You know, we've got a couple
(19:48):
of satellites to escapade spacecraft that are on their way
to Mars here shortly, so you know, we'll have twenty
percent of everything orbiting around Mars will be built by
rocket Lab once those two satellites arrived. So you know,
it's you back to your earlier point, Like it's it's
pretty easy to get excited about the work you do.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
As you say that, you know the reach across literally
everything that's going into space, and part of that was
these quite shrewd acquisitions you made. And you can be
a point where a company goes away where you try
to integrate acquisitions. You've got a couple more just this
year that you've sealed, so you'll be doing that again.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
But it seems to have worked quite well.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Bringing the culture off those quite specialist companies in space systems,
which is really the bulk of your revenue. Now bringing
them into the rocket Lab fold and culture, it seems
to have paid off really well.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, I mean I would say it's it's not good
like it's hard work.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
And also, you know, the companies that we look to acquire,
they had to have two fundamental things right. They had
to have the best technology in the world mission success,
the most beautiful technologies, and.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
The team had had to be able to be integrated
into Rocker Labe.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
You know, we have at least half a dozen to
a dozen acquisition targets and companies that we're looking at
at any one time. But you can see by how
many we do, you know, how kind of type the
messures in the funnel that actually actually get through. And
you know the reason for those successes have been you know,
it hasn't been a massive culture shift to go from
(21:18):
what were their fundamental core principles and beliefs prior to
the acquisition. You know, as long as they map very
closely to Rocket Lab, then it tends to work.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
So you're doing that acquisitions, integrating them, electrons, getting you know,
the process, getting better and better every time you launch,
doing interesting things with constellations and that sort of thing.
And then in the background you've got these really ambitious missions,
probably the most ambitious of which is recounted in the book,
the Capstone mission, the so called super maneuver. They're just
(21:49):
just take listeners through why that was so important to
Rocket Lab and why. Actually, all the engineers I talk to,
they all talk about Capstone as one of the highlights
of their career at Rocket lad Well.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I would say it was the most ridiculous mission that
we ever did. You know.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
We we we used an electron and a photon satellite
bus to send a small spacecraft NASA to the Moon.
And I think up until we did it, everybody's you know,
the accepted belief is that if you want to go
to the Moon, you have to do that off a
very large rocket. And you know that that is you
(22:25):
know that that has been you know, the reality and history,
and you know, for the first time we took a
tiny little rocket and a tiny little spacecraft and delivered
that all the way to the Moon. So what that
meant is the performance in the you know, the engineering
margins had to be so incredibly tight that it was ridiculous,
and you know it was it was just an engineering marvel.
(22:47):
You know, we were we were measuring everything in grams.
There was it was just everything was down to the
slimmest of margins, and not just you know, not just
the you know, the margins are avaiable, but the whole
trajectory design. You know, we used this trajectory design to
(23:08):
slingshot ourselves around the Earth and slowly build up the
energy to ultimately do a translunar injection. So you know,
we're all go to the Earth and accelerated in a slingshot,
you know, seven times until we were put on a
path to the moon.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
What's you know, really special I think about that mission
is just how you had to recalculate on the fly there,
respond to how you know things we're performing in space
and change the calculations literally overnight and then go on.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
It terrifying sort of moment. But it worked.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yeah, it did better than work.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
Not only did deliver the payload exactly right down the
middle of the corridor that it needed to deliver, but
we went on with that spacecraft right out into deep space,
and for a while there we were looking like we
were going to end up doing the entire mission itself
because the NASA spacecraft.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Had you know a lot of issues in commissioning and
getting getting going to start with.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
So we actually had a maneuver that we were going
to do after we'd separated off the spacecraft and we
were going to do our own kind of deep space
and Moon aflyby and stuff. But we had to hold
that maneuver because we were following the spacecraft on its
way to the Moon and NASA spacecraft had issues, so
(24:31):
we were kind of back up, back up mission in
case they weren't. We're able to get that spacecraft to work.
Thankfully they did, and you know, the mission was a
tremendous success.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
And look that's progressing in terms of NASA putting a
space station around around the Moon and return to the Moon.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
That is all on.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
You've got other ambitions, you know obviously around MYZ you're
involved in missions there. Hopefully we'll be involved in bringing
those samples back from mys at some point. That's an
ongoing project that NASA is looking at. You've got interest
in Venus, that's a real passion project for you as well.
I guess, did Capstone really give you the confidence that, yes,
we can play beyond sending stuff into orbit, that we
(25:11):
can do interplanetary lunar missions.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
And when you get it deep into deep space, you
have to deal with a whole lot of really nasty
radiation environments and you know, navigation becomes difficult. And so
you know, the Capstone mission really set us up to,
you know, to do things like the Mars missions that
we're doing here shortly, and other missions as well, where
(25:35):
you know, it's onto the ball game to go deep
space and inteplanetary, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
So the missions roll on, Peter that the next big
milestone really is, it's been well flagged, is the launch
of your larger rocket, Neutron. You're mad at work preparing
for that at the moment. Your profile by the Wall
Street Journal recently, and you said, if you want to
build a big company, you've got to go big, and
that's the whole goal. But talk us through really how
(26:02):
you think Neutron stands to change the competitive dynamics out there,
which is really dominated by space X at the moment.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
I mean, there's one really successful and dominant player and
medium plus lift and you know, having some competition in
the market for.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
That, I think is very important.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
That's what our customers are asking and demanding. So that's
where Neutron kind of scratches at it. And you know,
it's a thirteen thousand kilogram to aubit vehicle, reusable for stage,
and you know, it's a very unique looking vehicle. It
looks very different to every other rocket that's been built today.
(26:39):
That's because we've had the luxury of getting a do
over from all of the lessons we learned from Electron
and all the lessons others have learned from their own programs,
and really, you know, having a clean sheet of paper
to design something that's that's really really optimized.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
And as we go into this lot of expectation, but
the share price has had an all time high in
credible I think as we speak about fifty seven or
fifty eight dollars US. So there's a lot of interest
in this company. There are tens of thousands of local investors.
You're at Parliament recently. I saw you speak there and
the industry was basically saying, you know that we want
(27:14):
to grow by a couple of billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
You said, why don't we make that? You know, two
hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
There's a trillion dollar business out there that New Zealand
could take a big slice off. I guess it goes
back to you. If you want to be big, you
got to think big.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Well, that's right, that's right. I mean, you know you've
said it exactly right. I mean, you know the end
the industry is growing tremendously quickly and you know, depending
on whose report you want to read, it somewhere between
one point four and two trillion dollars. These are big numbers,
and you know there's there's no reason, you know, certainly
why New Zealand can't have a bigger piece. And you
(27:46):
know it's my job to make sure that we have
the biggest piece of that that part possible.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
I mean you still employ well over a thousand people
in New Zealand, yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
So it's still tough times unfortunately at the moment. But
one of the things you said there, which was remarkable,
as you know how many millionaires you made when you
listed the company. A lot of New Zealand people have
done incredibly well out of being on that journey.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Yeah, I mean the end of the whole, whole point
here is to do cool things and create value. When
you create value, you know that that's wonderful for everybody.
And you know, we've always incentivised our staff with with
with stock, and you know, it was always funny, you know,
when we started issuing staff stock, it was it was
just sort of something to sticky coffee on, and nobody
(28:30):
have thought it'd be worth any value because of course
in New Zealand, you know, share options just really aren't
really a thing. And but yeah, as a result, you know,
I think there was something when we initially went public,
there was something like one hundred and fifty million years
in New Zealand that we had created just out of start.
And you know, there was at a ten dollar stock price.
So you know, there's a lot of people done done
(28:52):
really well, which is which is awesome because you know,
we rely on our shareholders.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
We just got a ten exit. We just got to
do ten more rocket labs. And it sounds sounds easy,
but in the current environment, we sort of need a
bit of hope, don't We need to turn a corner,
and it's got to be driven by genuine growth in
the economy, not shifting around the deck chairs.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, but I mean I'm incredibly excited.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
I mean the only other thing I do outside Rocket
Lab is is sit on the investment committee for board
for Outset Ventures, which is a deep tech firm. And
you know, so lucky I get to see so many
New Zealand's deep tech startups, and so I wouldn't get
too I wouldn't get too down in the dumps. There's
I can tell you there's a few rocket Labs coming,
and you know, even just look at Holt there's another
(29:39):
billion dollar unicorn created.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
So incredible coming.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Yeah, just raise one hundred and sixty five million. So
you're absolutely right, when you know, when I get down,
I go and talk to startup founders because they don't
care about the state of the economy. They care about
as you did twenty years ago, setting out to.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Change the world.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Exactly right.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Thanks Peter, great to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Good luck for new Tron, and congratulations on the upcoming
twentieth anniversary.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Thanks so much for being on the business of tech.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Thanks better appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
So, Sir Peter Beck, there getting Neutron ready for launch.
Hopefully that will happen before year's end at Launch Complex
three at Wallops Island, Virginia, where the pad is ready
to go once the rocket is. It was a fascinating
experience writing the book, interviewing the engineers who designed the
Rutherford engines, the carbon fiber experts who went from building
(30:38):
America's cup yachts to building rocket bodies, the mission control
directors who are responsible for launches. The yes, no crucial
question are we ready to go? Hugely pressured jobs, but
they are amazing professionals, the satellite and spacecraft designers, some
of whom joined Rocket Lab as a result of those
(30:58):
acquisitions that were made. People like Vinod Kossla, the Silicon
Valley venture capitalist who gave Sir Peter the first substantial
funding injection, and even Stephen Joyce, the former government minister
who helped clear the way for launchers to take place
here in New Zealand. You know, when all it said
and done, you can rave about the innovation that happened
(31:19):
at Rocket Lab and the pioneering things they did with
three D printing and the carbon fiber and all of
that sort of stuff. There was a bit of luck
involved along the way, but more than any other New.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Zealand company I've covered in the last twenty years.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Rocket Lab really embodies that classic quote from Sir Ernest Rutherford,
our famous Nobel winner. We don't have the money, so
we have to think paraphrasing what he said. Even now,
twenty years in, Peter Beck has approached the development of
Neutron with the same sort of lean mentality he did
with the one rocket all those years ago. He's doing
(31:55):
Neutron for a fraction off the cost that you would
associate with the typical medium lift development program. You know,
his attitude still basically his hackiness, be done as cheaply
and efficiently as possible. If he can afford something, go
back to the drawing board and figure out how to
do it, make something up that will work in its place.
(32:17):
That's a discipline that was baked into him from his
early days, I think building his own rocket bikes in
the design work he did at Fisher and pikel It's
a good way to run a company, particularly a listed
company which is having to report every quarter to the
public to shareholders. It's something that I think maybe the
artificial intelligence industry could learn from at the moment, as
(32:38):
it throws eyewatering amounts of money at AI hardware, training,
large language models, even securing tech talents, spending hundreds of
millions of dollars on individual engineers. We have too many
rich companies with frankly too much cash at their disposal
going after this area of technology.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
It's going to take a.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Few more deep seek mode humans where people without the
same resources are forced to find a better way of
doing things to bring some sanity back to that whole space.
And that's really what rocket Lab has done throughout over
twenty years of innovation.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
They still have that in their DNA.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
We have to be really efficient and lean and cost
effective in doing this, and that forces innovation that forces
them to come up with better ways of doing things. Anyway,
thanks to sir Peter for coming on once again, and
thanks to you for listening. If you want to find
out more about the launch of rocket Lab, go to
my website rocketlab book dot com. There are links there
(33:36):
where you can order a copy. It's also now in bookstores,
which is pretty exciting for me to see my book
on the shelves. If you're listening to the Business of
teching your podcast app, please do leave a rating and
share the episode with your friends and check out the
show notes too at.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Business desk dot co dot nz.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
In the podcast section, you'll find my weekly reading list there.
I'll catch you again next week for another episode of
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