In this weeks’s inaugural episode our guest is Peter Beck, founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, who provides us some background on his passion for space, on engineers leading companies, why Rocket Lab is not a launch company, and more.
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About Space Minds
Space Minds is a new audio and video podcast from SpaceNews that focuses on the inspiring leaders, technologies and exciting opportunities in space.
The weekly podcast features compelling interviews with scientists, founders and experts who love to talk about space, covers the news that has enthusiasts daydreaming, and engages with listeners. Join David Ariosto, Mike Gruss and journalists from the SpaceNews team for new episodes every Thursday.
Watch a new episode every Thursday on SpaceNews.com and on the SpaceNews YouTube channel.
Show Notes
Time Markers
00:19 – Peter Beck Conversation00:20 – Peter’s personal journey01:26 – On passion02:48 – What pushes you?05:38 – On engineers leading companies07:29 – Rocket Lab is not a launch company09:29 – Collaboration, skillsets and scaling11:22 – An exciting to be alive14:12 – The nights and weekend project18:53 – Segment 2 – Space Takes18:59 – Trump 2.022:39 – Lunar landers and economy25:14 – New Glenn rocket28:01 – Segment 3 – Space Loop29:34 – Contact us
Transcript – Peter Beck Conversation
David Ariosto – Sir Peter Beck, it’s good to see you again. Want to just sort of jump right into this you. You grew up in one of the southern most towns in the world, right on the southern tip of New Zealand, and I remember the last time that we spoke, you were telling me that one of your sort of earliest childhood memories was walking outside under the stars with your dad and wondering if someone else might be looking back at all of us. And I would just maybe that might be a good place for us to start. And how that, how all of that really played into the creation Rocket Lab, and your really your own personal journey.
Peter Beck – You know, I think that’s, that’s like my overview effect moment, you know, as astronauts go up into orbit and they look back at Earth to have this overview effect where, you know, all of a sudden they become very passionate about space and, and I think that was, that was a moment for me, you know, that’s the earliest recollection I have of, of, well, actually, one of my earliest recollections, childhood Memories, actually, but, but certainly that was the point in time where I knew that I was going to have a career in space, no matter what
David Ariosto – Yeah, did he just take you out there just sort of on a regular basis? I mean, that was sort of your deal, sort of nightly strolls into the under the stars.
Peter Beck – Yeah. Well, he was an amateur astronomer himself, and and so, so, so you know for sure, there was, was always plenty of, plenty of discussion around the dinner table about space.
David Ariosto – You know, in a lot of my conversations with folks, particularly, you know, former president of Sierra space, Janet Kavandi and others, they sort of all hearken back to these early times in childhood, oftentimes in places that were devoid of artificial light. And it was just sort of, it’s often just sort of those, those indelible imprints and early memories in childhood that seemed to set this trajectory towards space, because it is sort of a ponderous type of, type of industry at its core, isn’t it?
Peter Beck – Yeah, I agree. And I think inside all of us, we have, we all have a passion, right? And it’s, and it’s just about, you know, discovering that passion. And some people are very lucky, like me, to discover that very early on in their life. And some people, it takes a little bit longer. But, you know, I firmly believe that, you know, you’re all you’re all good at everybody’s good at something, and everybody has some kind of passion or or desire to do something with their life. And, you know, as lucky to, like I say, lucky to find that very early.
David Ariosto – Well, let’s, let’s talk about that. Because, you know, I’d love to find out sort of what drives you. Because clearly, it’s, it doesn’t strike me. You don’t strike me. This the sort who’s driven by money. You know, money makes things work and makes thingsaffected and opens opportunities, but in interviews that I’ve seen you before and just our own previous conversation, what, what gets you up in the morning? What, like, what is, what’s pushing, pushing you in sort of these day to day?
Peter Beck – I mean, look, you know, I have an innate interest in space. But I think probably the fear of failure is, the is, you know, probably one of the driving forces, right? And, you know, to be successful in this industry, you need to be somewhat paranoid and always thinking of, you know, potential failure vectors. So, so, yeah, look, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s clearly something I’m passionate about. But you know, what I wake up in the morning about thinking about is, you know, how can we have the biggest amount of impact possible? And, you know, impact is kind of, you know, you know, it’s a function of time as well. It’s kind of, you know, effort over time, and the longer that you can do it, then the bigger impact you’ll have. So, you know, for me, you know, trying to build a, you know, a long, you know, an enduring space company, a multi generational space company, is, is super important. And while I might not be, you know, personally motivated by, you know, by my own wealth. You know, we are a public company, and in order to build a company that is, you know, is able to survive and thrive for for a long period of time, you have to build a profitable company. So one of the things I think that’s unique about about Rocket Lab is that, you know, we, yes, we’re all engineers, and we love building, you know, lovely things and and doing cool stuff in space. But at the end of the day, we’re also very commercial. And you know, the in an industry where a lot of people get very passionate about about space and about technology, you know, we are about that for sure, but equally so we’re passionate. About building business and building a sustainable business that will be around for a very long time.
David Ariosto – You know a friend of mine, to to your earlier point, friend of mine has this, this, this comment where she says, even when things are going well, just maintain anxiety, so to speak.
Peter Beck – Easy in this industry, very easy in this industry.
David Ariosto – Seemingly, right? But let’s, let’s talk about the the engineering aspect of this. Because you know, former head of NASA Ames Pete warden said you were maybe one of the best engineers he had ever met. And I’ve seen you sort of quoted elsewhere, particularly about Rocket Lab itself, that says there’s just sort of this almost relentless focus on engineering, and that having a boss as an engineer is advantageous. And there is, there’s some natural corollaries there with SpaceX. So you know, what does that sort of mean to you, in terms of both Rocket Lab, but also sort of this, this broader paradigm that we’ve seen with a lot of these new commercial space companies that are headed not necessarily by MBAs, but by engineers who are just, you know, trying their hands and building a business in space.
Peter Beck – Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. And I think there is, there is a really tight couple between good engineering decisions and good business decisions, and especially in the in the rocket game, is that, you know, if you make a bad engineering decision very, very quickly, it’s a bad business decision because, you know, consumes so much capital and so much time and, you know, so, so I think, I think that’s that, that is, that is super important, you know, to, you know, to have those those those correlations, and be able to wear those jewel hats. Because, you know, what might be a sub optimal engineering decision can be the best business decision. And, you know, sometimes they’re they’re synergistic, and sometimes they’re in conflict, and being able to weed your way through that and chart a path, I think, is super, super important.
David Ariosto – But, I mean, maybe that’s a good corollary in terms of some of the the other missiles that you’re developing, or rockets that you’re developing, not missiles, but neutron is obviously a big one, right? I mean, this is your medium, live launch vehicle that eventually going to come online. I think I’d like to kind of talk about that in a broader scope, because you’ve talked about, you’ve talked about Rocket Lab not being a launch company and not being a satellite company, but rather a space company. And so, you know, I’m curious what, what does that mean, where do you go from here? And so, what’s the what’s the broader vision?
Peter Beck – Yeah so, I mean, frustratingly So, it’s always been incredibly clear and transparent to the pane of glass to me that, you know, the space business is going to start to look a little bit blurry. About what is a space business and what is a services business? Because, you know, access to space is so constrained, it’s so difficult to do. There’s only been a few, you know, companies that have mastered it and scaled it throughout human history. And you know, even today. You know, you would think 5060, years on, it would be, it would be a solved problem, but, but yet, it’s still really, really challenging. And I think, you know, if you have the ability to, you know, vertically integrate and build any spacecraft that you wish, and then go and launch it at scale and at frequency. Your ability to put infrastructure, which in turn is services, in orbit, is unparalleled to anybody else. And you know, I think, you know, you’ve seen the rise of Starlink as the best example of this. Right if you’re in commercial comms right now. You’re not having a good time, because, you know, Starlink has eaten everybody’s lunch. And if you stand back objectively and say, Well, how could you compete with that? Well, the only way you can compete with that is if you have your own unfeathered access to space at a low cost, and your own ability to build a spacecraft at scale and at a low cost. And that’s, you know, that’s what it looks like for comms right now. And I’d say that’s what it’s going to look like for many, many space services in orbit.
David Ariosto – To that effect, in terms of just the general competitive nature, just finding those sort of collaborative environments in which you’re working with other companies to kind of leverage your respective skill sets and respective infrastructure seems to be a part of a rocket lab’s kind of business model at this point, because it’s Starlink. And when you even look at Chinese comparison networks, I mean, they were just so big in comparison to everybody else, that seems like. Like a just a natural tact, I guess, one is that, is that accurate? And two, if so, is that sustainable?
Peter Beck – Yeah. I mean, look, it’s true that scale in this industry is really, really important, especially when you go after those applications. And, you know, I guess our approach has been a little bit different to, you know, to others, you know one you know one competitor you talk about has essentially infinite access to capital, and then the other one is a government. So essentially infinite access to capital. We’ve never had infinite access to capital. So we we have to follow Ernest Rutherford’s famous saying, which is, we have no money. So we have to think so. If you look at, if you look at, you know, the way that Rocket Lab has constructed its business, you know, we methodically went about small launch then, then, you know, we methodically went about building space systems. And if you look at our Space Systems Group, it’s, it’s a lot of component systems at scale. Then it’s, it’s full satellites at scale, and then neutron is kind of the last piece of the puzzle here to gain multi ton access, high frequency cadence access to orbit. So our approach is kind of a little bit more subdued and methodical, but nevertheless, our ambition remains identical at the end point.
David Ariosto – You know, when we talk about sort of broader infrastructure and what, what’s, what Rocket Lab is, is positioned to be, in terms of just sort of a space company. You see, you know terms like lunar economy system, lunar economy, you know, sort of broader questions about putting data centers up in space just by virtue of how much is being processed. And kind of do some of that processing function in situ locales, rather than kind of bringing it all back. And it really starts to speak. I mean, if trends continue in terms of just a radically different environment up there than even 10 years ago, and perhaps even five years ago. What does that look like to you? What does it look like for Rocket Lab, but more broadly, what does it look like when you have just a lot of machinery up there, a lot of new commercial space stations up there, and potentially a lot of humans up there, both in space stations that potentially are commercially run, but also, you know, potentially on different planets.
Peter Beck – Yeah, I mean, it’s, look, it’s a super exciting time to be alive. You know, I used to always lament that I was born, you know, out of the Apollo area era, because that was going to be, you know, historically, the most significant time in human space flight. Or, you know, in space, his space history, Boy, was I wrong. I mean, I think, you know, now is an incredibly exciting time, if not the most exciting time. I mean, some, some, some kid from the bottom of, of nowhere in New Zealand can run a space company. I mean, that’s, that’s that that’s a craziness, right? So I think it’s a super exciting time. I honestly believe that, you know, the biggest thing to be done in space is yet to even be thought of, let alone executed. So I think there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity and ambition and excitement, you know, in the generations to come, and we’re really only getting started now. I will temper that with with, with all of that promise and hope and excitement comes, comes a lot of rubbish also. And you’ve seen a tremendous amount of capital flow into the space industry, and quite literally, actually get lit on fire for no return. So it’s only you know, the space industry, in my opinion, is a little bit short on execution. You know, tons of ambition and ton, tons of kind of excitement, a little bit short on execution, but, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s the way of, of, you know, discovering a new domain. And, you know, it’s, it’s probably no different to when we first set, set, you know, sail on the oceans and started exploring the world in that sense. I’m sure there was a bunch of crack pop missions that that occurred out of there too. But nevertheless, the point remains, you know, I think this is a super exciting time to be alive within the space industry. And there’s, there’s, there’s a lot to come.
David Ariosto – And that leads me to this sort of next question. So those of us who are interested in interplanetary travel, your quote, unquote, nights and weekends project is probably among the most exciting. I mean, it really is. I’m obviously talking to those who don’t know I’m talking about Venus and what looks to be the first private mission there you’re going. I find this almost ironic in the sense you started sort of looking up at the stars and wondering if people are looking back at us, and then this is going to be looking for signs of life, or at least, you know, organic molecules that might be in the upper atmosphere. So just, just sort of set the table for me a little bit. Tell me. Tell me about that and why you’re doing this.
Peter Beck – Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think you think you hit the nail on the head, really. I mean, it like. I think the one of the one of the biggest questions for humanity to, you know, ask and answer is, are we the only life in the universe? And I think that’s a really meaningful question to, you know, to ask and answer, and you know, if the answer is yes, then, well, perhaps we should treat a little bit a little bit more carefully if the answer is no. But that’s also super important. And if we look across our solar system, you know, where are the likely probabilities to be able to find life? There’s a very interesting layer in Venus’s clouds, about 50 kilometers altitude, where there’s been some, some discoveries of phosphine, you know, somewhat contested. And in that particular cloud layer, it’s kind of good enough to be able to support some forms of life, some extremophiles, if you will. So armed with that kind of information, we teamed up with Sara Seager and a bunch of MIT science people and developed an instrument called a nefometer, and we developed a spacecraft at cruise stage and a probe to to descend into Venus’ atmosphere and and take some measurements, if you will. You know, a go, no go, gage for, for life and, and have a crack. You know, it is, it is a privately funded philanthropic mission. And so that’s where the nights and weekends come from. We’ve got, we’ve all got real jobs to do. But, you know, I think if you can go there and you don’t find life, I think that’s super interesting. If you go there and you did find life, I think that’s that answers one of the biggest questions in in our history, is, yes, there is other life in the universe, and I think that’s important to know, but, but moreover, if you can find life in the clouds of Venus there, then I think you can pretty, you know, pretty conclusively draw that life is going to be prolific throughout the universe. It’s not, it’s not, you know, not just on Earth or not just on Venus. And I think that’s also, that’s, that’s also important to know.
David Ariosto – I find it crazy that the Soviets have gone there as many times, had gone there as many times as they did, actually landed on Venus. Crazy people know about this. It’s just didn’t last long, obviously, and it certainly was not crude by any stretch. But just to do that from engineering perspective is…
Peter Beck – Massive, massive scientific accomplishment. I mean, you know, when you get lower in the atmosphere and Venus, it’s almost like a liquid. So, you know, it can take hours for the probe to descend through these, these heavy, dense gasses and land on the surface. You don’t even need a parachute, because that atmosphere is so thick that you just gently touch on the ground.
David Ariosto – Alright, that’s wild, alright. Last question, as as we sort of wrap this up, this is, this is quite possibly the most important question of the afternoon. So, brace yourself
Peter Beck – Oh god.
David Ariosto – Are you a Star Wars, a Star Trek guy?
Peter Beck – Oh, well.
David Ariosto – So I only ask, I’ve heard this is a question they actually ask at NASA for new applicants. So it’s a germane question in this in this industry.
Peter Beck – Either way, I’m going to offend 50% of space geeks. But so William Shatner, Captain Kirk actually opened a New Zealand facility, and I got the chance to spend some time with him and the the most amazing person you could imagine. So by by, you know, by that metric, I have to say, have to say,…
David Ariosto – You don’t have a choice.
Peter Beck – No, no.
David Ariosto – All right. Peter Beck, thank you so much for joining us.
Peter Beck – Thanks so much.
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