🏠 > [[Interviews]] > January 2 2026 **Insider**: [[Peter Beck]] **Source**: [Miles O'Brien](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl8Sp6y85wY) **Date**: January 2 2025  🔗 Backup Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl8Sp6y85wY ## Transcript ### Opening and Mission Context (0:00) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (0:00):** Hello and welcome to a special edition of Miles Ahead. I'm coming to you from the bridge of the Korean icebreaker Aran and we are in the Southern Ocean on our way to Antarctica and the Thwaites Glacier on a scientific mission to better understand how it is melting and how quickly it is melting. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (0:26):** Before I left for this epic voyage, I was in New Zealand, and it gave me an opportunity to visit a space company I've been very curious about for a number of years. It's called Rocket Lab. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (0:40):** It was founded back in 2006 by Peter Beck, who grew up in the South Island of New Zealand in a rural area, always wanting to be building, flying, or working around rockets and space. Of course, in that part of the world, there weren't too many logical and obvious pathways to achieve that goal. He went to consider NASA in the United States and was actually very disappointed with what he saw. It was the latter days of the shuttle program. It didn't inspire him. So, he came back to New Zealand and started this company. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (1:19):** And here's a fun fact for you. The second most frequent flyer to space after SpaceX is Rocket Lab. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (1:28):** The conversation I had with Peter was fabulous. We talked about how you start a company and bootstrap it up to what it is right now with a valuation at $37 billion, publicly traded on the stock exchange. What it's like to compete in the billionaire boys club with the likes of Bezos and Musk, and what his long-range goals are. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (1:52):** He wants to create a company that is nothing short of the largest space company on the planet. And he aims to do that by being, as he puts it, end-to-end, meaning providing every aspect of the space endeavor from launching to building satellite components to the satellites themselves. Doing it all. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (2:18):** And in the case of Peter Beck, doing it all is something that might sound like an audacious goal, but it would be foolhardy to bet against him. I hope you enjoy this conversation. --- ### Early Life and the NASA Path That Didn’t Happen (2:33) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (2:33):** Peter, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (2:36):** Look, it's my pleasure. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (2:40):** So, let's talk about you growing up in New Zealand and imagining getting into the space and rocket business. I know there's a long story there, but is this something you've just always wanted to do? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (2:54):** Yeah, for as long as I can remember, you know, there was two things that I was fascinated with, and one was space and the other was engineering. And, you know, one of my youngest childhood memories was standing outside looking at the sky in a cold Invercargill night and, you know, that's where I was born, a tiny little town at the bottom of the South Island, New Zealand. And, you know, it was famous for its crisp clear nights and, you know, my father was standing with me and we're looking at the stars and he basically pointed out and said, well each one of those stars is a sun and round those suns could be planets and there could be somebody standing on that planet looking back at you. And that was really the moment I was like, wow, this is much, much bigger than me. That was really, you know, the moment I was like, wow, this is much, much bigger than me. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (3:31):** I want to go there or something like that I guess. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (3:37):** Right. Yeah. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (3:42):** Well, I'd love to think that there's a chance to see if there's other life in the universe. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (3:47):** Yeah, we'll get into that in just a moment. But growing up in New Zealand in a rural part of New Zealand and telling everybody you met you wanted to be in the rocket business, I imagine there was some skepticism. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (4:04):** That's an understatement. Uh yes. Well there just seemed the most unlikely thing and there was no trodden or obvious pathway. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (4:13):** But you persisted. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (4:18):** Yeah. I think it's like anything that you're really passionate about, you just find a way. And, you know, the original plan was to go and work for NASA. I had had a dream of that for many, many, many years. And a little space shuttle toy that I had sat on my desk at home and then sat on my monitor at work, and that was always the guiding star. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (4:43):** I was lucky that I was surrounded in a family where that kind of thing is completely normal. I grew up in a family where, you know, no matter what dream you had, it wasn't diminished, it was encouraged. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (5:00):** You were fortunate to have that for sure, to get that encouragement. So you investigated NASA. I know you are good with your hands. You're kind of a hands-on engineer type person, but didn't pursue advanced degrees and I know that you got kind of sidetracked along the way. But I am curious, when you came to sort of survey the landscape in the United States and see what NASA was doing, you were disappointed, weren't you? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (5:30):** Yeah, it was kind of funny and it was at that time at NASA where, you know, the space shuttle was going away and there's a lot of uncertainty. And it was, you know, quite a depressed sort of place. And you have to look at it through the context that, you know, I'd been watching NASA TV and, you know, I was obviously fascinated with the Apollo program and that just wasn't how NASA was when I got there for sure. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (5:57):** And of course, you know, being a foreign national with no degree didn't help my chances of working there either. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (6:03):** Sometimes it's a good idea not to meet your heroes, right? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (6:03):** Yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (6:10):** So, okay. So, you go to NASA. You're not seeing it happening there. They're not going to hire a Kiwi, particularly without a bunch of letters and diplomas along with them. How does that turn into the idea of starting your own company? That's an audacious move. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (6:28):** Not really. I mean, it was the only logical path and thing to do. So, you know, if you can't join it in one way, you need to figure a way to join it in another. So really, you know, if you lay all your options down on the table, that was pretty much the most logical path to go after. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (6:48):** You make it sound like you had to do it in a way. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (6:54):** Well, if I wanted to work in the space industry, that was pretty much it. Yeah. And it had to make it not only do it, but had to make it successful. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (7:00):** You never lost sight of this dream, did you? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (7:06):** No. I mean, even today, you know, I pinch myself and I get to work on the most amazing projects. I mean, we just are flying two spacecraft to Mars right now. It's crazy. So, and the ironic thing is that, you know, I think it was launch number four was actually for NASA. So, I got to work for NASA, just in a slightly different way. --- ### Bootstrapping Rocket Lab and the Small-Launch Niche (7:26) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (7:26):** So, you didn't start out as a multi-billionaire as a couple of your competitors or most of your competitors in the private space world begin things. And so I'm sure it was a little different scenario trying to stand up a company. And I know you started out focusing on smaller rockets, smaller payloads, small satellites. Is that a function of not having the resources to go bigger or did you truly see a market niche there? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (7:50):** Both. You know, you achieve what you can achieve with the resources that you have. And, you know, we have a saying here at Rocket Lab that is steadfast today, and it's actually stolen from Ernest Rutherford and that is: we have no money, therefore we have to think. And, you know, that approach to things has been largely our success. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (8:16):** We go about things in a way that we can afford to do them and we continually scale and build bigger and bigger and bigger. But yeah, no, we didn't have the resources of the typical rocket startup, which is, as you point out, a billionaire's project. You know, we had to start from zero and build it up. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (8:41):** It must be interesting competing in this billionaire boys club if you will. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (8:46):** Well, we're certainly not going to outspend them. So, you know, we have to out innovate, out think, and out hustle. And look, this has just been the DNA of the company to date. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (8:58):** And, you know, if you look across and kind of survey the history of rocket companies, it's not great. And there there's really only been SpaceX and Rocket Lab that have, as commercial companies at least, that have broken through to some kind of scale and cadence and all those kinds of things. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (9:17):** And a lot of that is attributed to developing this company and growing this company in adversity and not having tremendous amount of resources. You know, every dollar, every second of every hour is precious. --- ### Electron Innovations: 3D Printing, Electric Pumps, and Optical Networking (9:36) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (9:36):** The Electron rocket has some interesting innovations. It's a small rocket but it has a lot of parts that are 3D printed which is fascinating and also this is getting into a little bit of rocket science but it's I think worth noting. You had electric pumps as opposed to turbocharged pumps and that actually is an interesting innovation, which I guess probably has some limitations, but why did you go that route? Why did you go with 3D printing? Why did you go with electric pumps as opposed to the traditional turbochargers which are after all fueled by the propellant? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (10:13):** Yeah. So that's a great question and it's not just those things, like there's so many firsts in that vehicle. You know: first carbon composite vehicle to ever go to orbit, and first optically networked, and—but look, all of these things were driven out of engineering need. They weren't driven because we wanted to have new innovations or something new to talk about in an investor pitch. They were driven out of solid engineering need. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (10:37):** And, you know, small launch vehicles are very, very difficult to make because the actual payload you lift is a relatively small amount. So it only takes a small amount of mass to mean that you put nothing into orbit. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (10:50):** So things like the electric turbo pumps enabled us to have really, really fine control over the mixture of the engine and also deplete the tanks completely of propellant. So these were, you know, physics-driven innovations. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (11:10):** And, you know, I think that's one of the reasons why Electron stands as the most successful small launch vehicle in history. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (11:15):** There's nothing more important than weight when you're designing a rocket especially a small rocket like this, right? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (11:21):** Every gram counts. Like we measure everything in grams. --- ### Electron Reusability Lessons and Why Neutron Is Different (11:21) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (11:21):** So, Electron—not a reusable vehicle. Probably for some of the reasons you just described, but did that put it at any sort of disadvantage in the market as the market moves with SpaceX and more recently New Glenn toward reusability? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (11:47):** No. So, we actually did have a reusability program for Electron where we caught it midair with a helicopter. It was an amazing program and we learned so much from that reusability program that informed us for our Neutron program, which is a reusable vehicle. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (12:03):** But you kind of hit the nail on the head is—for two reasons. One, it's very difficult to do from a pure mass perspective, but also economically, you know, the whole rocket is only $8.5 million. So, you know, say you get a million of that back on your stage one, it makes it harder to kind of close by the time you refurb it and everything. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (12:25):** Yes, you're still on the right side of the equation, but if you compare that to like Neutron where, you know, it's a $55 million rocket, getting it back really, really matters. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (12:37):** So, yeah. And with respect to putting it at a disadvantage to other vehicles, I think it's important to remember that, you know, it services a market niche that none of those larger vehicles can. So, it's kind of irrelevant. You know, those larger vehicles could be free and it wouldn't, you know, really affect the market for Electron. --- ### The Small Satellite Market and “Private Jet” Launching (12:55) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (12:55):** Well, let's talk about that market a little bit because I don't think the average person is dialed into this—this um explosion is probably not a good term when you're talking about rockets. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (13:07):** We don't like to use that word. We avoid that word in this industry. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (13:12):** This—the ubiquity of small satellites has increased over the years. Explain what's going on, you know, sort of what is this addressable market and what is driving the business model for a company like Rocket Lab. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (13:24):** Yeah. So, we'll talk about just the small launch to start with and kind of bifurcate it because it is a little bit complicated. So, you know, think of small launch like a private jet, where you have a very valuable payload that needs to get to a very specific destination in a very specific time frame. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (13:43):** Now, you know, if you wanted to climb aboard a 737 or something like that, it doesn't really suit your purpose because it doesn't get you to where you want to go when you want to go. So, you know, Electron is like the private jet of the space industry in that respect. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (14:00):** And then you have the much larger rockets which can serve to be, you know, the bus of the space industry, but you don't really get any control over the destination or the timing. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (14:12):** So, you know, we've created a really important market that enables our customers to get their spacecraft really where they need to go to be commercial. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (14:18):** So you're paying for a little more of a bespoke service here. More control. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (14:26):** Exactly. Exactly. And the thing is like, you know, space is not space and orbit is not orbit. You have to be in a very specific place in orbit around the Earth to execute your mission or to provide your service. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (14:39):** You know, if you put a satellite up and it's into an orbit and it's missing out the majority of America all the time, for example, but your entire market is America, then that's not going to be a successful business proposition. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (14:52):** I think it's worth just a couple of words on what these small and CubeSats are all about. Basically, lots of innovations have come together to shrink the size of useful sensors, vehicles that can be put into low Earth orbit and that's your sweet spot. Just explain how this has changed the nature of launching things into low Earth orbit. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (15:23):** Yeah, well you hit the nail right on the head. So, you know, if we roll the calendar back 20 years then, you know, if you wanted to put some kind of synthetic aperture radar service up, for example, then your spacecraft would be measured in tons and it would be a nation that would go and do that because the cost of launch was so high, the cost of building a spacecraft was so high. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (15:43):** And then, you know, fast forward to today, that same mission can be done with something slightly larger than a microwave, just with the reduction of electronics and compute power and all those sorts of things. So, you know, that is no longer a project of a nation state. It's a project of a company. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (16:03):** And of course this is where projects and platforms like Electron really come into their own, where, you know, the launch is the final piece of that puzzle. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (16:16):** So give me an idea of the kinds of customers that might be interested in launching and operating these smaller satellites. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (16:23):** Look—right across the board. So from one end of the spectrum, we launched a bunch of CubeSats for an Irvine high school or series of Irvine high schools. And on the other end of the spectrum, we've launched national security payloads for the NRO where people's lives matter, you know, are on the line for this stuff. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (16:42):** So the full end of the spectrum: NASA payloads to the moon, and commercial entire commercial constellations and everything in between. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (16:54):** It's not overstating to say this is a real game changer for the commercialization of low Earth orbit, is it? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (17:00):** No, you're exactly right. I mean, when I first started this gig, it was like, you know, the statement would be one day space would be democratized and commercial would be doing the majority of the launch, not government for example. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (17:12):** And then I think if you stand where we are today, you would go well the vast majority of launches are all conducted commercially. Like what—there aren't any government launch vehicles anymore. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (17:24):** So what in the last sort of 20 years of Rocket Lab, we've basically witnessed the complete democratization of launch and large portions of the space industry. So that's what makes it so exciting is it's just moving so quickly. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (17:36):** You know people look at AI and think man that it's moving quickly. Well, you know, the space industry is on a similar trajectory. --- ### Competition, Electron Cadence, and Why Neutron Exists (17:47) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (17:47):** When people think about this, people who are not dialed into the space world like us, they think about SpaceX. Is there plenty of room for some competition for the likes of you? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (18:01):** Well, we certainly think so. I mean, those guys have done an amazing job and, you know, that they are really the beginning and the leaders of the democratization of space. But, you know, Electron is the second most frequently launched vehicle behind SpaceX's Falcon 9. So yep, plenty of room for us. And, you know, we're always looking to continue to grow. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (18:25):** So you kind of own that space but now you're working on the Neutron which looks a little closer to a Falcon 9. It approaches the payload capacity of the Falcon 9. So now it's a little more of a head-to-head competition on that front. What are you thinking on that front? Is there enough business out there that you can compete against Elon Musk? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (18:45):** Yeah, look—of all the things that I worry about and toss and turn at night, it's not is there enough customers for Neutron. The reality is that there's tremendous growth within the space industry and tremendous need for access to space. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (19:04):** And, you know, that it's an incredibly successful vehicle but, you know, people do want alternatives. Both commercial and government want alternatives and, you know, I think we're probably in the best position to provide that alternative. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (19:17):** You know, we've taken all of the learnings from Electron, all of the learnings from other programs and, you know, really I've had the great privilege of having two opportunities in one lifetime to start with a clean sheet of paper and design a new rocket. And, um, I don't like—apart from von Braun—I'm not sure how many people in history have got a chance to do that. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (19:42):** So, you know, we're taking all of the learnings and rolling them into Neutron. And, you know, as a result, you see some pretty innovative things in that vehicle as well. --- ### Neutron Reuse Architecture and the “Hungry Hippo” Fairing (19:48) **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (19:48):** You know, the Hungry Hippo fairing, for example—you know, the fairing opens up, we eject the second stage and the payloads and then the fairing closes and the rocket that lands back on the launch pad looks exactly like the rocket that took off. There's no bits missing. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (20:06):** So, so you don't even—you don't throw away any stages. It's completely reusable or is your second stage is not— **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (20:11):** No, the second stage at this point is expendable. Yes. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (20:18):** I guess I haven't seen the design, but somehow the top fairing actually comes back. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (20:25):** Yeah. So, it's like I say, we call it the hungry hippo. So, it's like a big mouth. The fairing splits in half and then the payload in the second stage is ejected out of the vehicle. And then the fairing closes back up. So, you don't have to go fishing in the ocean for fairings. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (20:37):** That's very clever. Very clever. Did you learn enough on Electron that can be applied to Neutron? Put it that way. Or is this an entirely different operation? --- ### Why Neutron Is “Easier” and the Economics of Scale (20:44) **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (20:44):** Neutron is an easier rocket to build than Electron was. And I know that's a big statement, but the thing is that a small launch vehicle from both the economics and the engineering is just way harder. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (20:55):** And the best way to try and explain that is that, you know, every gram of mass you have to account for on a small launch vehicle. So if you add a simple thing like a pressure transducer, it's a meaningful amount of mass like you have to account for that mass. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (21:09):** Now if I add a pressure transducer to Neutron that's got a 13,000 kg payload lift capacity is totally irrelevant. I don't even need to think about it. So in a lot of respects it's an easier rocket to build. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (21:20):** And then from the kind of commercial element—you know, the average selling price of an Electron, call it $8.5 million. Now, the flight safety team, the production team, and the regulatory team, they don't care if they're flying a 400 ton rocket or a 13 ton rocket. It makes no difference to their jobs. Like, the license doesn't change. The flight safety doesn't change. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (21:49):** And then the production guys, they don't care if they're assembling a 2-in valve or a 12-in valve. It's the same. The difference is that Neutron has a price of $55 million and Electron has a price of $8.5 million. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (22:06):** So, you know, you have to get all those overhead functions like flight safety and regulatory and all those kind of functions and get them under the umbrella of an $8.5 million price. So, you know, you can't afford to have like a 20 person flight safety team. You have to have two people. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (22:18):** So it forces you into developing extremely lean and automating everything and it's just a crazy lean machine and, you know, at this point the gross margin on an Electron is approaching 40%. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (22:31):** So you know, if you can do that on something that costs $8.5 million and have all of those functions in there, you can imagine when you've got a $55 million sale price, you know, life becomes much simpler. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (22:51):** So really it created a lot of discipline for your engineering going through this process hadn't it? That's very interesting. So I hadn't thought as much about those scaling issues. Obviously you think about them a lot. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (23:03):** Yeah. Yeah. I mean you just like—you cannot be lazy with any hour of time, every dollar of cost, every gram of mass is accounted for. --- ### Neutron Mission, Market Fit, and Methane Reusability (23:16) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (23:16):** So what is the mission for Neutron? Is it is it a Falcon 9 killer? Are you going to try to compete head-to-head— (**Peter Beck**: No) - who—what's the addressable market for the Neutron? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (23:27):** So, if you look at all of the payloads that have been launched in the last 10 years, and you exclude things like Starlink, which are obviously, you know, SpaceX's own payload, the average mass was 5 tons. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (23:42):** So, if you look at Neutron, it can lift 13 tons. And we made it lift 13 tons because that's about what you need to be able to lift astronauts as well. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (23:53):** So if you kind of just stand back and go, well what's the total addressable market? Well you know a vehicle like Neutron addresses the vast majority of every launch that's required historically and in the future. So, you know, it's just the right size for doing all of that. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (24:07):** And as I said before, you know, it's a comparator to a Falcon 9. It gives customers optionality around which launch vehicle they want to use. And there's lots of different reasons why you want to fly or not fly, both, you know, competitive and then, of course, governments—governments always want more than one provider. So, you know, it provides a lot of diversity there. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (24:31):** But no, we definitely see it alongside their product and we think it's going to be really successful. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (24:37):** Can you compete on price with Elon? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (24:43):** Well, we wouldn't be doing it if we didn't think we could. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (24:43):** Do you intend to land it in a similar fashion on offshore platforms, that kind of thing? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (24:51):** Yeah, I mean that's correct. You know, physics dictates all of these things. So, you know, it's a fairly tried and true method these days. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (25:04):** And this is a methane fueled rocket. Is that correct? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (25:04):** Correct. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (25:09):** And what advantage does that give you? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (25:09):** Basically, you know, this whole rocket was built around reusability and the methane gives you a high degree of reusability because, you know, other propellants like kerosene you have a lot of sooting and a lot of cleaning processes that you need to do for engines and whatnot. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (25:24):** Whereas methane—you know once it's out of the tanks the tanks are spotless. Once it's out of the engines, the engines are spotless. So, um it just really drives towards reusability. --- ### The “Elite Club” of Rocket CEOs and Human-Ratable Design (25:35) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (25:35):** So, I'm sure you spend a fair amount of time being in this elite club of individuals who have rocket companies with the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. What are your interactions like with them and how do they view the competition versus how you see it? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (25:54):** Well, I think at the end of the day, everybody can respect each other just in the fact of how hard it is to put anything into orbit. And, you know, there's a very, very small club, as you point out, of even countries that have managed to deliver something to orbit. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (26:13):** It's a smaller club for companies to deliver something to orbit. And it's a club of two—a commercial company that was able to deliver something to orbit and scale it and do it over and over again reliably. So there's just immense respect amongst everybody I think who has ever done that because we all appreciate just how ridiculously difficult it is. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (26:36):** There there's certain things that bind you together. It's like you speak the language of rocket science I guess as much as anything. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (26:42):** Yeah. Yeah, I mean I would more align it to like a traumatic event that you would bond over. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (26:49):** It's got to be really difficult watching the launch of a rocket that is your baby. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (26:56):** I hate it. I absolutely loathe it. Not for any other reason that I know that people are absolutely relying on us. Like on board that payload, on board that rocket is someone's satellite and more often than not that can be the success or failure of their business. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (27:13):** If you screw that up, they might not have a business anymore. So I just feel tremendous responsibility every time we fly. And so no, I'm yet to enjoy a rocket launch. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (27:25):** You have not expressed an interest in going yourself. I guess a related question is, are you thinking about human rating your Neutron since you'd say the payload is appropriate for putting humans in space? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (27:39):** Yeah. So, the vehicle is designed to be human ratable. It's not human rated out of the chute, but, you know, that's one of the reasons why we lifted the payload mass a little bit—or the lift mass a little bit—was to ensure that we could fly human payload at some point in time. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (27:59):** And, you know, for me personally, I mean, I have all of the knowledge of the engineering, but none of the ability to just tune that out and sit on the top. So I think that is a special kind of person who can do that. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (28:11):** Sometimes too much knowledge is a bad thing, right? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (28:17):** Yeah. But I mean a lot of these astronauts are engineers in their own right and they have a great depth of knowledge of the systems that they're flying on, but they just have this ability and this courage to just tune it all out. --- ### Neutron Timeline, Wallops, and Company Footprint (28:23) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (28:23):** I know launch schedules tend to move to the right routinely, but what are you thinking right now as to when you might launch that first Neutron rocket? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (28:38):** Yeah, so the focus for us right now is to get it to the pad in Q1 next year. And once we're on the pad, then we can—there's a lot of hot fires and stack tests and barrage of testing that we need to do and that will inform us how quickly we can launch thereafter. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (28:54):** But, you know, we'll be moving quickly into Q1 next year, getting it on the pad and then checking it out and flying as quickly as we can after that. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (29:00):** The launch facility is for Neutron is at Wallops Island, Virginia, and that's where everything's coming together. I mean, you know, to give you kind of a perspective of the size of the vehicle. If you take all of the liquid oxygen produced in New Zealand, it half fills the tank once. So, you know, it's not launching out in New Zealand anytime soon. So it is being assembled in Virginia. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (29:25):** Correct. Yeah. There's elements of the vehicle being produced at all of our sites all around the United States and some in New Zealand. You know it's a full company effort. So there are some elements produced in New Zealand but it's all being integrated and flown out of the US. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (29:41):** And your company now is officially based in the US and I assume that makes it easier to do business with NASA and the like. Do I assume you're not going to—even though you can't get enough liquid oxygen—you're still going to maintain your Kiwi roots, I imagine. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (29:59):** Yeah. So, we're actually—it's a common misperception. We became a US company back in 2013 when we first, you know, took some venture capital from Silicon Valley. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (30:07):** And the New Zealand operation is by far the smallest operation. You know, the vast majority of the company is in the States. We're now in six different states across the United States. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (30:19):** You know, we've talked a lot today about our rockets, which is what everybody gets excited about because it's kind of the big stick roaring in the sky. But actually two-thirds of our business are building satellites and satellite components. --- ### Space Systems Strategy and Vertical Integration (30:37) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (30:37):** Well, let's talk a little bit about that because you've had some recent success. The ESCAPADE mission comes to mind. And I know you were involved in things like the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. Lots of interesting science missions. The company seems to be developing all kinds of space business right now. What's the strategy there? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (30:58):** The large space companies of the future are going to be end-to-end. And when I say end-to-end, meaning, you know, you're able to build a satellite using your own components, launch the satellite on your own rocket and operate the satellite in orbit. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (31:12):** So for us, this is where we've been driving methodically to go. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (31:19):** And if you look at the likes of our friends over at SpaceX, you know, are they a space company or are they a telecommunications company? It's starting to get a little bit blurry. And I think the large space companies of the future, it is going to be blurry. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (31:31):** And, you know, we have over 40 spacecraft in build right now, ranging from, you know, missions that re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, the two missions to Mars, as we talked about, the ESCAPADE spacecraft. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (31:50):** We're building a constellation for MDA Globalstar for comms constellation and we're a prime contractor on a half a billion dollar national security mission, you know, building the entire spacecraft constellation for that. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (32:03):** And then we have our components businesses where like, you know, solar—we're the largest space-grade solar manufacturer in the world now—reaction wheels and star trackers—we're one of the largest suppliers in the world for that now. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (32:15):** So, you know, part of the company's growth has been in launch, yes, but also in our space systems division where, like I mentioned, in many cases some of the largest players in the world. --- ### Mars Sample Return, NASA Science Cuts, and Commercial Alternatives (32:28) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (32:28):** I know you were involved in the Mars sample return mission. I'm using past tense there. I don't know if it really is past tense, but it doesn't look good right now. What are your thoughts on that? And maybe a few words on where NASA is headed with a 50% cut to its science mission. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (32:48):** Yeah. So, the Mars sample return project obviously never received congressional funding to go and do. But, you know, it was interesting because it reached a point where it—the proposal to do it was 11 billion by 2040. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (33:07):** And look, government should do the things that commercial companies can't. That's kind of the purpose of government in my opinion. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (33:13):** But we came up with a proposal that could do it in the 2030s for like $4 billion. So, you know, I think commercial's ability to go and do those deep science missions is kind of strong. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (33:25):** And then ultimately what turned out of that is a Mars telecommunication orbiter that was written in the budget. And so hopefully that will be awarded early next year, and which is, you know, that's the kind of the first part of going to Mars is putting telecommunications there. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (33:49):** So, yeah, there's lots of interesting Mars programs, but, you know, I think there's a lot of exciting stuff to come, too. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (33:54):** Seems like, sample return is a holy grail kind of mission. It just can never seem to get stood up properly. But you feel like you cracked the nut to make it financially viable. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (34:08):** Totally. Like I said, it was budgeted 11 billion. We reckon we could do it for four and in half the time. Look, it's a deeply complex mission, but, you know, it really, really revolves around a small rocket launching off a little planet. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (34:21):** I don't know about you, but there's only one company I know who builds small rockets launching off little planets. So, you know, I think we're pretty well suited for that. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (34:27):** Interesting. So, but that's on ice for now. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (34:35):** That's on ice. But it's like I say that Mars telecommunication orbiter project is something that everybody is agreed on. So we will look to see that coming in the near future. --- ### Venus Mission and the Search for Life (34:46) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (34:46):** So Elon is from Mars. You are from Venus. I understand it. You have a little— you have a side hustle going on to go to Venus in your spare time to the extent that you have it. Tell me why you're interested in Venus and what the mission might be. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (34:58):** Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't want this to sound like rocket CEOs claiming planets. It's not the way it's intended to be at all. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (35:05):** My motivation for going to Mars goes right back to the very first part of that conversation is, you know, standing outside as a young child thinking that somebody was looking back at me on a planet. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (35:18):** And I think that one of the biggest questions that we need to answer for, you know, as a human species is: is there other life in the universe? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (35:26):** And I think if we can answer that question either way, it kind of is pretty profound. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (35:33):** And Venus has a very unique kind of part of the environment in the clouds at about 50 km altitude where, you know, it's kind of possible for life to exist. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (35:46):** And there's been some interesting measurements taken of some phosphine gases and things that would indicate there could actually be life there. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (35:52):** So yes, we have this completely philanthropic private mission to Venus to go to look for life in the clouds of it. And, you know, it's super high-risk mission where, you know, who really knows if we'll measure anything or if we'll even get there. But I think it's worth a try. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (36:17):** I think, you know, if you can answer that question—are we the only life in the universe—that would be a pretty good use of one's time on the planet. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (36:24):** Mars gets a lot of attention doesn't it? Venus could use a little as well because it is interesting to think about what might be in that atmosphere and there's been a lot of interesting science which leads you—there's some interesting telltales which might lead you toward life. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (36:41):** Exactly. Exactly. And look, Mars, don't get me wrong, Mars is a wonderful planet and something where, you know, a human can plant a footprint on the surface of. And I think politically that's very powerful. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (36:54):** Nobody is ever planting a footprint on the surface of Venus. So Venus kind of loses marks politically for being interesting, an interesting place to go. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (37:00):** But yeah, look, I love planetary science. I love trying to, you know, expand the human knowledge of our universe. I think that is worthy. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (37:11):** Now, is a Neutron rocket capable of getting a probe to Venus? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (37:17):** Neutron is absolutely. In fact, you know the CAPSTONE probe that we had developed that flies on Electron could also get to Venus. So we have two ways there for sure. --- ### Fully Reusable Futures and Neutron’s Design Tradeoffs (37:35) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (37:35):** So as you move into Neutron, reusability is such a key thing. Imagine, you know, flying a 737 from Auckland to Christchurch and then throwing away the 737. Your ticket might be kind of expensive. The idea of reusability is so crucial as, you know, a true space economy opens up. Do you imagine fully reusable vehicles down the road? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (37:54):** Well, it's an interesting study. You know, for us to decide to go for an expendable second stage, we studied that tremendously. And look, I reserve the right to be wrong. I've been wrong plenty of times. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (38:06):** But for that scale of vehicle, it doesn't really make economic sense. For larger scale vehicles, it makes a lot more sense. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (38:25):** Hence the reason why you've probably seen the Falcon 9 not get a reusable second stage, but, you know, their next variant, their much larger rocket getting a reusable second stage. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (38:30):** I think there's a scaling tipover point that makes it much more economically viable and I think Neutron is right on the cusp of that tipover point. --- ### Inspiration vs Utility: Big Missions and Quiet Space Infrastructure (38:48) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (38:48):** Do you think that the industry and the general public are a little too focused on—you mentioned it a little bit earlier—you know, big rockets, long missions, footprints on Mars, that kind of thing. And overlooking a piece which you and your company are very focused on: that there are many ways that space can serve humanity without these big splash missions. Is that kind of your thinking on this? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (39:13):** Yeah, look, the big splash missions are really important. And I think they excite the next generation. So, you know, I'm not upset about that all at all. We'll just keep our head down and keep executing on the stuff that we do. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (39:38):** But I think it's funny because if you look at NASA, I see NASA as having two roles. One is to do great science. One is to inspire the next generation of children to go and do great science and/or get into engineering fields which, you know, are nothing to do with space. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (39:57):** You know, so many great engineers grew up watching NASA do its things and then went into aviation or automotive or refrigeration—you name it. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (40:10):** But space has this uncanny ability to inspire so many, so many people. I mean, it's just such a raw harness of energy and it's so much power and, you know, every single person that I've taken to a rocket launch for their first time ends up in tears. It's just such an emotional thing. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (40:29):** So, it's one of these things that is just so powerful and I think these really big missions are super important to keep that going. And our footprint on Mars is going to be epic and, you know, to this very day we always talk about landing on the moon. That hasn't gone away. So, I think these are important. --- ### Space Economy Reality and Rocket Lab’s 2035 Vision (40:55) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (40:55):** What are your thoughts in general about, you know, the viability of low Earth orbit and perhaps beyond as a vibrant place to do business and make money? Do the business plans really work as you look down the road? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (41:09):** Well, we're doing okay. So, there is absolutely a great market in low Earth orbit and a great market in the space industry. So, no I think there is. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (41:20):** Now there are some more speculative business plans. I mean I really struggle with things like asteroid mining and those sorts of things where, you know, it gets a little bit more speculative. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (41:38):** But I think people misunderstand how much they rely on space infrastructure every day. Like, you know, we're having this interview here. I guarantee you somewhere between you and me there's something happening in space. But we just don't see it because it's all hidden infrastructure. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (41:56):** You know, people rely on space all of the time and become more and more reliant on it. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (42:02):** I think if you ask the average Joe on the street like where does the pizza come from? They would say from, you know, a guy in a in a in a you know Chevy Neon. But actually it all comes from space because for the Chevy Neon to turn up at your house he needed GPS. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (42:15):** So, you know it's just embedded in so much of our everyday lives but it's all hidden infrastructure. So the space economy is big and it's booming and depending on which report you want to read from which analyst or banker it's somewhere between 1.8 and $2 trillion by 2035. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (42:34):** So where do you see your company in 2035? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (42:40):** Well, we've been unashameably stating we're trying to build the biggest space company in the world. That's what we're trying to do. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (42:48):** And, you know, if you look at the projects and the elements we're going after, it comes back to I think the really big space companies of the future are going to be these end-to-end companies where they can build whatever satellite is required, they can launch it on their own rocket and then they can even operate it in orbit. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (43:06):** So, you know, we are a long way down that path now and we'll just sort of methodically keep adding and building and adding and building and scaling. And I think that's ultimately where we want to be. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (43:17):** You want to beat SpaceX? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (43:17):** No, I don't see it about beating SpaceX. They'll go and do their own thing. We'll go and do our own thing. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (43:24):** But, you know, the most important thing for me here is that, you know, as when I was growing up my parents said to me I can do anything I want provided I have impact to people and the planet. So you do whatever you want. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (43:38):** And the way I look at it is—and, you know, one of the reasons for taking Rocket Lab public was—if you want to have impact you can do one really big thing once or you can do lots of little things for many, many, many, many decades over and over and over again. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (43:50):** So, you know, the definition of success here for me is building like this long living multi-generational space company that just keeps having impact year after year after year after year. --- ### Closing the Interview and Sign-Off (44:04) **Miles O’Brien (Host) (44:04):** When you were the boy with your dad looking at that clear sky, could you have imagined where you are right now with this company? **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (44:10):** No. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (44:16):** Is the truth. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (44:16):** Yeah. Yeah. All right. I think that we'll leave it at that. Peter Beck—Sir Peter Beck—thank you very much for your time and we wish you continued good luck in space and on Earth. **Peter Beck (Rocket Lab CEO) (44:32):** Thanks, Miles. Much appreciated. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (44:32):** My thanks to Peter Beck and the rest of the team at Rocket Lab. It was a great experience seeing their facilities and getting a sense of how they do their magical work. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (44:49):** For me, I'm going to continue this voyage south. We are headed to West Antarctica and the Thwaites Glacier, the most consequential glacier on the planet. I'm on a ship full of scientists who have all kinds of ways they want to study it and try to better understand why it is melting so fast and what the consequences might be. **Miles O’Brien (Host) (45:08):** So stay with me. I'll keep posting. I'm Miles O'Brien. Thanks for watching and listening to Miles Ahead. And if you like what you hear and see, please let us know. ---