Mark Rocket: Aerospace entrepreneur on being the first Kiwi to make it to space

The first Kiwi has made it to space.

Christchurch entrepreneur Mark Rocket has made history as the first New Zealander in space abroad a Blue Origin mission in West Texas. 

With a New Zealand flag in hand, Rocket and five others reached 105km, experiencing zero gravity during the 11-minute sub-orbital flight run by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' space tourism company.  

Mark Rocket told Mike Hosking it was an incredible and emotional experience that he would certainly repeat.  

He says some highlights were doing flips mid-air and seeing the true darkness of space. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mark Rockett had a very good weekend. He became the
first Kiwi in space when he took the latest Blue
Origin flight from West Texas. This is the Bezos Rocket
of course. Anyway, Mark Rocket's founder of Kia Aerospaces. Literally,
you just arride back in the country this morning, Mark morning,
Good morning, Mike. I know you've got an MDA on
the price, but was it worth it?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I sure was. It was an incredible experience. You know,
I had the black and white outline of what to
expect to get all those colors painted in was just
absolutely incredible.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
The eleven minute thing disappointing over too soon or what.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's a pretty intense ten or eleven minutes, Mike, and
you've got a couple of days of training, so yeah,
no disappointment there at all. I mean, it's just absolutely epic.
You know, you buckle in and you're riding a rocket
to space and to feel that acceleration. It just gains
more and more momentum until you're going three four hundred
chimeters an hour, which kind of keeps you on your
edge your seat a little bit, and then the main

(00:55):
engine shuts off and you then get a stage separation,
which is a pretty hard clunk as most of your
spaceship drops below you, the booster goes back to Earth
and the capsule keeps going, and then pretty quickly you're
you're in a zero gravity environment and you can float
up off your seat and look out the window and
see space.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
What's the best bit is that the floating?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Is it?

Speaker 1 (01:16):
The view? Is it the thrust up?

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Is it?

Speaker 1 (01:18):
The prep?

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah? I mean the whole experience was was phenomenally phenomenal
when you put it all together, But certainly, you know,
some of the highlights was, you know, to ride a
rock up into space and to feel that those sort
of speeds accelerations, and then certainly the icing on the
cake was to unbuckle and sort of put my feet
backwards and did a backwards flip pad of my seat
and started to float around. And then then to see that,
you know, the darkness of space, you know, it is

(01:43):
quite incredible, you know, I mean you see photos of
the Apollo program and other astronauts doing stuff, and to
actually see that the blackness, I mean, it's it's really
intense and photos don't quite capture the emotional elements to it.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Katie Perry started singing, did you.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Sing no, no, not this time?

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Okay, would you do it again?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
For sure? Yeah? I mean Blue Origin are an amazing company.
I've got a really good safety record. Is also an
escape system which puts a bit more comfort in your
mind as you are going up. Yeah. I think Blue
Origin offer an amazing and amazing package.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Could anyone do it pretty much?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah? I mean there's a wide range of ages and yeah,
it's pretty pretty accessible.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Good on you, mate, Well done. Welcome back Mark Rockett,
who's with a key Era space. But he paid the money.
I was just thinking what he Reckon's worth. I mean
I asked Ryan earlier. He said, you do it for
one hundred thousand bucks.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, I thought Ryan revealed himself to be quite a
big spender there.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Ryan's Ryan's a bit like that. You'd ask him a
few probing questions Ryan gives himself.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
I look affoard to going out with Ryan and maybe
on Thursday night at the Radio Awards.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Ryan's a great time at the Radio Awards, or so
I heard.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
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