[[Home|🏠]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> [[Interviews]] <span style="color: LightSlateGray">></span> May 01 2022 **Insider**: [[Peter Beck]] **Source**: [US Business Summit 2022](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3a4qq-6FZ4) **Date**: May 01 2022  🔗Backup Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3a4qq-6FZ4 ## 🎙️ Transcript >[!hint] Transcript may contain errors or inaccuracies. **Narrator**: When we set out to democratize access to space, we started with launch. We wanted to make it easy for small satellites to get to orbit faster and more frequently, and to do it on their terms. So we built a rocket unlike any other - one that could be built and launched in days, not months or years. A rocket that could be recovered and then launched again. A rocket that puts small satellites in control of their own mission. Electron changed the way we access space, but launch was only ever the beginning. We didn't just make it easier to get to space - we made it easier to do incredible things once you are there. Our spacecraft solutions enable science, innovation, and exploration, turning possibility into capability on orbit. The satellites we build and launch are keeping countries connected and borders protected. They're monitoring weather and managing waste. They're providing insights on climate change and helping us manage resources for generations to come. They're bringing the solar system within reach, ushering in a new era of affordable interplanetary exploration to the Moon, Mars, Venus, and beyond. And that's just our story so far. As the world's reliance on space infrastructure grows, we're looking to what's next - developing a new class of launch vehicle to deploy the mega constellations of the future, providing vital services to billions of people down here on Earth. Space has defined some of humanity's greatest achievements, and it holds the keys to our future. And with Rocket Lab, space is open for business. **Host:** So to speak on this and much more, it is now my pleasure to introduce Peter Beck, founder and chief executive of Rocket Lab. Peter is a true pioneer. He is responsible for New Zealand's ascent into the space industry, redefining it with rapid and cost-effective delivery of innovative, high-quality technology. I think it's fair to say that without Peter's input, the chances that we'd be here dedicating so much time to space at a New Zealand-US business event - it just wouldn't have happened. Peter is joining us live from the United States where, among other things, he's preparing for that exciting mission to the Moon as part of the CAPSTONE mission, which is a collaboration between New Zealand and the United States and the first launch to the Moon from New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula. We will have some time at the end of his address for questions, so do keep them coming through. And can you now please join me in welcoming Peter Beck. **Peter Beck:** Brilliant. Well, it's truly an honor to be able to talk today. I can't be there in person, but I guess what I'll start off with here is why space and how can New Zealand sort of play in it. The thing that really got me hooked on space from a very, very young child was the ability to actually have impact. I look at space and to me, it's just infrastructure. If you build a bridge in a city, that's great - that services those people who use that bridge in a city. But outside that city, it's pretty much useless to everybody else on the planet. Whereas space - you put a satellite in orbit, and every 90 minutes that satellite is orbiting the Earth and providing data to all of us down here. I'm reminded of the satellite we launched a few years ago, the weather satellite, and it provides weather to New Zealand, to Australia, to America, to the UK - in fact, so many countries around the world. And this is a little box of electronics about the size of a small refrigerator, and it can just have such a huge impact to so many people. ### Relevance of Space In the New Zealand context especially, we spent a lot of time explaining to people, "Well, why is space relevant to me? I'm just down here on Earth. I'm not planning on going to the Moon or anything, so how is space at all relevant to me?" Well, the truth is that we all rely on space every single day for just about everything we do - whether it's weather, obviously an important one, but even just logistics. All the ships, the airplanes, trains, and trucks are all GPS-enabled and quite often enabled by space-based communication. So whether you're ordering a pizza or flying to the US, it's all enabled by space. And of course, that little funny gray dish on the side of a lot of people's roofs pointing to the sky where the telly comes from - once again, all coming from space. So lots of communications. And then the things that are less obvious - monitoring soil moistures and temperatures and various elements that are important to farmers and crop management. And of course, science, education, and learning - there's nothing that sees the sparkle of a children's eye more than touching something that's been to space or watching a rocket launch. So it's a huge enabler for STEM. Then of course, finally, climate monitoring and climate change. Space is the ultimate high ground, and having the ability to sit above it and persistently look down and really monitor macro-level changes and measure things - you really can only do that from space. So lots of things in their everyday lives that we absolutely rely on for space. ### Why New Zealand? There's an interesting flight [shows map] - if you can see right down the bottom left-hand corner, there's a little red dot that says New Zealand, and you can see New Zealand is this tiny little place in a giant expansion of ocean. I'm often asked the question, "Why on Earth New Zealand?" We obviously started in New Zealand as a company, but we've been a US company for many, many years and have lots of operations in the US and in New Zealand. So why do all this down in New Zealand? I think a lot of people's answers would be, "Oh, Pete's a Kiwi, and he likes being down there, so that's why we do it." Actually, that's not the reason at all. If you're looking to launch a rocket really, really frequently, the one thing you need is no neighbors. And this is the wonderful thing about New Zealand - a small island nation in the middle of nowhere is absolutely the perfect place to go to space and go to orbit and Moon and Mars and beyond from. So that was the genesis of why we have any operations in New Zealand. ### Rocket Lab Products We've got a bunch of products. The first and most well-known being our Electron launch vehicle. It's a small launch vehicle, dedicated to lifting small satellites into orbit. The size of satellites have shrunk tremendously over the years, and we saw a really important opportunity for a small launch vehicle to go and fill that market niche. We've launched a bunch now, and we operate multiple launch pads around the world. We're just about serving every commercial and US government customer you can imagine - from incredibly important and challenging customers like the NRO through to NASA for multiple missions, and then lots and lots of commercial organizations. Launch infrastructure is incredibly important. We have multiple launch pads here in New Zealand - we run two launch pads in New Zealand and one launch pad in Wallops Island, Virginia. That gives us all of the launch capability that we could possibly imagine. In fact, between those two pads, we can launch every 72 hours for the next 20 years. That's really important when you want to go to space frequently. And once again, you can see the collaboration between having pads in New Zealand and pads in the US. We're actually the second most frequently launched US rocket. The rocket - half the rocket is built in United States, the other half is built in New Zealand. It's launched in New Zealand but actually flies under an FAA launch license. So if you want to talk about bilateral collaborations, I think this is a great poster child. Not only was it from an engineering perspective with lots of bilateral collaboration, but from a regulatory perspective and lots of bilateral agreements and treaties that were required for us to be able to launch. I think not many people realize that [we're the] second most frequently launched US rocket - actually fourth most frequently launched rocket in the world. So it goes SpaceX, and then Russia, China, and then us. An incredibly successful product in that respect. ### Beyond Launch But we're known a lot for launch, but it's not just launch that we do. We do the full gambit of end-to-end space systems. So we launch a bunch, we build lots of satellites, and also we're moving into providing satellite applications for all the data that's generated from space. We're really unique in the fact that between us in New Zealand, literally it's [everything] from an idea right through to orbit. We do satellite designing and manufacturing, we build satellite components, we have flight software, we've got launch sites obviously and launch vehicles, and then once the satellite's on orbit, we actually do the satellite operations as well. Another little fun fact: 38% of all the rockets that were launched last year had a Rocket Lab component on it somewhere, whether it was part of the satellite or part of the rocket. 38% of every rocket that was launched, whether it be the payload or the rocket, there was a Rocket Lab logo somewhere. So we really do a lot more than just launch. ### Global Footprint And of course, we have a global footprint. Lots of operations in New Zealand - both from design, analysis, manufacturing, test, and also launch. The same in the US - we're spread across lots of different states in the US and also in Canada. We employ around about 1,300 people these days, so we've been growing fairly quickly across all of that. What we're really trying to do here is grow and enable a global space economy. Lots of Rocket Lab products have been on some pretty cool missions. We did the solar panels on the James Webb Telescope and did some software. The solar panels on the Mars Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter, are ours. Lots of really cool things - more than 1,700 spacecraft and spacecraft components on orbit and counting between us and all of our family companies. This is where I guess you could say it would have been easy to stay a little New Zealand company and launching a rocket now and then. But this is where we're able to expand throughout the US and globally to make a significant global footprint and really play our part in the global economy in space, and not just be a little player down in New Zealand. ### Neutron and Future Missions Of course, we have a larger launch vehicle that's under development right now. It delivers up to 15 tonnes into low Earth orbit. It's capable of human spaceflight as well. This is another fantastic collaboration of a really substantial project between the two countries. A lot of composite work is done down in New Zealand, also work done up here in the US, some testing down in New Zealand. The launch will be done in the US. So really a super strong collaboration between all of our business units and the two countries. And we're not just stopping at launch and spacecraft. We're reaching far beyond. As mentioned in the introduction, the CAPSTONE mission to the Moon is a NASA project that we've been working on for a number of years now, set to launch here in just a few weeks. This is really New Zealand's Apollo moment. This will be the first spacecraft of the Artemis program going to the Moon and launched out of the Mahia Peninsula. That is an incredibly challenging mission. Going to the Moon is no joke - it's actually really hard. So that mission is set to launch very shortly. Not many countries get to go to the Moon, so we're really excited to be able to fly that one out of New Zealand. We also have missions to Mars. We have two spacecraft that we're building right now that will orbit Mars when they arrive. When they arrive, Rocket Lab will have built 20% of all the orbiting spacecraft around Mars, which will have Rocket Lab logos on them. So that's pretty cool. And [we have] a bunch of other really difficult but exciting programs - one to Venus, another massive project for deep space missions. With that, trying to be conscious of time, I'm happy to hand it over. *[Applause]* ### Q&A with Peter Beck **Host:** Thank you very much, Peter. That was amazing. I have a lot of questions here. I can see there's some coming through on the Slido platform as well, but I wanted to begin by just asking you - you've just arrived back in the US, and I know that, like many of us, you spent the last couple of years here in New Zealand. What's it like being back? **Peter Beck:** Wonderful. It's... I've got two years of catching up to do. I mean, we took the company public on the NASDAQ from my office at my house. So this is... it's great to see the world reconnecting with New Zealand again, and we've all got a whole lot of stuff to catch up. So it's wonderful to see it all up and running again. **Host:** I also wanted to ask - this morning we heard from Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, and she mentioned the work that Rocket Lab is doing in her address to the summit. I guess Rocket Lab has really helped to propel New Zealand as being a prominent player in the space industry, and I just wondered if you could talk to the role that private business can play in helping to strengthen those bilateral connections. **Peter Beck:** I think that's a great point. Space especially is one of those things that can really span relationships. Space is very strategic to a lot of nations. Not many nations have it - I think there's 11 nations with sovereign capabilities to access space. So being able to use those capabilities and share them between nations is incredibly important, especially in these times where the world looks a little bit wobbly. It's certainly very important to keep those relationships tight and also share the skills and the knowledge between the two countries to inform us and keep us all safe. **Host:** We've had a couple of questions that have come through mentioning space junk. I guess one of the things here - well, actually there's quite a few questions on this. "How much space junk is created with each of your deployments?" is one of the questions. And another one says, "This person [Anonymous] loves what you're doing, loves that you're doing everything possible to recycle and reuse." Could you talk a little bit about that and also, are these efforts counted by the subsequent increase in space junk? **Peter Beck:** I mean, we've always taken the view of being tidy Kiwis, and the way we actually designed the rocket, the Electron rocket, from the beginning was to ensure that wherever possible, we would leave nothing behind. So when we go to orbit, our second stage, which is the largest piece of space junk, if you will, survives no more than four weeks before it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere and burns up. Same with our upper stage, our kick stage - it's a little rocket on it, so after we deploy our customer satellite, we'll generally do a deorbit burn on that and bring that home as well. That might sound normal, but actually that is not normal within the industry, and especially within an industry right now that is just growing so tremendously. Actually having the forethought and the responsibility to ensure that you're not leaving junk behind, I think, is super, super important. Like I say, it's probably the industry's dirty little secret that not all the junk up there is dead satellites. There's a good portion of that as dead rockets. So ensuring that you leave nothing behind, we really felt, was our obligation. **Host:** You mentioned going public on the NASDAQ. I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about what that boost in capital has meant for Rocket Lab. **Peter Beck:** As a private company, we never struggled to raise capital. Going public was less about raising capital but more about having a public currency to go and do stuff with. Since we've gone public, we've bought three companies already, and certainly it's been very strategic in the way that we've been able to use that public currency. But certainly access to capital is strong when you're a publicly traded company and doing well. **Host:** There's another question that's come here through from Esther Guy-Meakin who asks about [how] we've heard a lot this morning about the shortage of talent and labor, and there's a question whether this is an issue for you at Rocket Lab and what you're able to do to address it. **Peter Beck:** It's a huge issue. I mean, the company has always been throttled by the talent feeding the machine. And quite frankly, only the best work for Rocket Lab - the bar is extraordinarily high. So for us, we only take the very, very best talent, and that's great because, in some respects, engineers that come to Rocket Lab or anybody who comes to Rocket Lab knows they're working alongside the best in the industry on the most exciting projects, whether it's going to Mars or going to the Moon or building a new rocket. They're all super exciting projects. But I mean, there is an absolute talent brawl fight going on right now, especially within this industry. We have just an absolute boom in the space industry with lots of big exciting projects. You can cry into your cornflakes and fight for talent, but actually you need to create it. So for many years now, we've been running apprenticeship programs down in New Zealand. We have scholarships. We've had five PhDs in a collaboration with University of Canterbury. So we do a lot to create the talent. Over 160 school visits to try and get kids really excited about space and careers in space and STEM. So it's a big program for us, and we put a lot of resource into there. I would say that in the last year or so, we're finally seeing the fruits of our labor. We're finally seeing the kids that we touched at school now becoming apprentices or at university - they're just coming out of university and looking for jobs. So it's a long road, but you have to invest in the pipeline for sure. **Host:** There's a question here on the sanctions, which has again been quite a common topic today, just asking whether the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia and the Russian launch vehicles therefore being taken off the global market - how has that impacted Rocket Lab and the New Zealand space economy? **Peter Beck:** We have no Russian components in any of our vehicles or any part of our supply chain. The large launch vehicle that we're developing, the Neutron launch vehicle, was kind of intended to compete directly with the SpaceX Falcon 9 and also the Russian Soyuz. So in some respects, that vehicle has gone from being kind of commercially important to us to... some of our customers are absolutely reliant on us getting that vehicle built to get stuff on orbit. Because as you mentioned, the Soyuz launch vehicles or anything Russian has exited the market. And not so much from sanctions, but just from really rotten behavior. I think it's going to be a very long time, if at all, before someone will be willing to put a payload on a Russian rocket ever again. **Host:** There's a question come through asking about the support that government provides and other financial institutions in New Zealand. Just a question asking what more could be done to help boost the success of the New Zealand space industry. **Peter Beck:** I think that's a great question. I think New Zealand has a huge opportunity in front of it. We've kind of busted down the door, but it's time for everybody to run through it. I think the biggest thing the government could do is create a space strategy. We see lots of other governments investing heavily in space strategies. If you look at the space industry, it's predicted to be a 1.4 trillion dollar industry by 2030. It's one of the fastest growing industries there is, and it's all high-tech, high-paying, high-wage economy jobs - all things that Kiwis are great at. So some strategy and some planning, I think, and some investment would certainly help New Zealand compete more globally. Rocket Lab itself - we have one and a half thousand New Zealand suppliers, and all of those suppliers are producing space-grade technologies that could all be taken to the world. **Host:** There's one question here which is quite a forward-looking question, just asking you what sector do you think will have the most satellites up in space in, say, five years time that aren't there today? Where are you seeing those trends and the growth? **Peter Beck:** Definitely communications, mainly around broadband. So broadband from space - there's a tremendous number of companies and startups at various levels investing very, very heavily in that technology. So the day where you can just download onto your cell phone directly from space is not far away. **Host:** I wondered if we have any questions from the floor. I know we've got some roving mics around, and we haven't had anyone brave enough to put their hand up yet. I think... no, that's okay. Peter, perhaps just as we're starting to get to the end of our question time, I did want to spend a little bit of time talking about other startups and entrepreneurs in New Zealand because I know that you're a really big advocate for helping to grow more businesses and to really inspire businesses to dream a little bit bigger than perhaps we have in the past in New Zealand. So what would be some of your advice that you'd give, particularly those businesses that are looking to go to the US? **Peter Beck:** The number one challenge that I see with New Zealand entrepreneurs is just not thinking big enough and kind of staying in the comfort of New Zealand and not expanding and going big. I was born in the bottom of the South Island, Invercargill. If I can build a space company, then anybody can do anything. There are no barriers. So the one thing I always try and mentor and encourage New Zealand entrepreneurs is to think way, way bigger. Especially if you're starting a company - that's a super hard, painful thing to do. So don't start a company with the aim of building a $100 million company. Start a company with the aim of building a $100 billion company and set the sights high. And don't be afraid to get on a plane. The world is big. New Zealand's always comfortable and it's always home, but the world is big and you can go do amazing things. So don't be shy. **Host:** I wonder if you could also maybe touch a little bit on capital raising because I know Rocket Lab, right from the early days, you've had those tier one Silicon Valley venture capital firms on your cap table - Khosla Ventures, Lockheed Martin. They're so synonymous with the industry and world-changing tech. But again, that is an area that New Zealand businesses struggle with - to raise capital within New Zealand and also offshore. What advice would you give New Zealand companies? **Peter Beck:** Get on a plane. The world is awash with capital, and I always say that the least valuable thing an investor will ever give you is their money. The most valuable thing will be all their contacts and experience and expertise. If you look at Rocket Lab, for example, as you pointed out, we started off with tier ones. Those tier ones ultimately introduced us to their limited partners. Their limited partners introduced us to sovereign wealth funds. Sovereign wealth funds and then into an IPO. So it's about setting up the trajectory of the company from day one without massive dilution. I see this time and time again with New Zealand companies - because they'll go out and do a seed round with a 35% dilution rate and go and do an A round, and then come to Silicon Valley or somewhere else to go and raise, and the founder is so diluted that they're uninventable. So as New Zealanders, it's a big world. I don't feel like you have to take the deal that's in front of you. Always shop the deal internationally and see what you can achieve. **Host:** That's some great advice. I might close by just trying to wrap a couple of these comments together. There's been some comment coming that says, "You're awesome, Peter." So I think probably we'll share that sentiment. But there's one question here just asking, "What is that rocket behind you?" Perhaps just so that doesn't get left as a burning question, could you maybe tell us a little about that? **Peter Beck:** That's a fair one. So that one's sitting there ready to go down to the Wallops Island launch site over in Virginia. **Host:** Always keep a spare rocket - some advice for all of us! Peter, thank you very much. That's been a really inspirational chat. Can we all give Peter a round of applause for joining us? And Peter, all the very best with the CAPSTONE mission to the Moon. I know that your success and Rocket Lab's success is also our success, and we will all be watching it with a lot of interest, I'm sure. So now I would love to invite Fran O'Sullivan back onto the stage, and she is going to introduce our next session. So thank you very much. >[!warning] Note >The rest of the interview is with Greg Foran CEO of Air NZ