14 thoughts on “Rocket Lab”

  1. Note to self: only say “I’ll eat my hat…” while wearing a hat made of straw or something similarly edible.

    I’ve only ever heard of a handful of people actually following through on that.

    The big news in that article isn’t just Rocket Lab (though good for them). It’s this open-ended funding model for high-risk ventures. If Rocket Lab is moving operations to the USA for Neutron, they’re subjecting themselves to ITAR and the FAA-AST, as well as whatever the equivalent is that they’re already dealing with in New Zealand. I guess with the entire country of NZ locked down over one case of covid, there’s no room for risk-takers there, and the $750 million is certainly a sweetener.

      1. All their launches have been from the North Island in New Zealand. The FAA has no jurisdiction until they launch from the USA.

        1. I’m sorry, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. FAA-AST licensed every launch from New Zealand.They have jurisdiction over every launch by an American company, regardless of the location of the launch site.

          1. I was the first FAA/AST person to meet Peter Beck, and he brought me up to speed on the company over beer at the Holiday Inn bar near L’Enfant Plaza. He wanted to know what his options were for licensing. I explained how it worked, and he decided to set up a Rocket Lab USA so that he could get FAA/AST launch licenses even while operating out of New Zealand. I was surprised he went that route, but given that New Zealand doesn’t have the a space safety arm (and may not have let him launch from there without some real oversite) it did work out for him. Rocket Lab USA was (and maybe still is) one guy in an office in California.

            Every Sea Launch shot was also FAA/AST licensed, since they had a corporate arm in the US.

            The IPO route of merging with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company is pretty cool. I wish it had been available when I had Kelly Space & Technology, Inc. I have to see whether one of my other ideas would be fundable in this manner.

            Lockheed Martin will make out like a bandit in Rocket Lab’s IPO. They put $5 million into the company a few years back, and the IPO will be at a valuation of over $1 billion.

    1. Check with Lady Gaga’s costumer and see if you can obtain a meat hat. Then with the raw bovinal sunscreen perched atop your pate you may boldly declare: “If blah blah blah happens, I’ll eat this hat”.

      1. If you do that, though, you’d better be prepared either eat the hat soon, or to vacuum-seal and freeze it.

  2. It would have made more sense for Mr. Beck to have declared, if the business case for this enterprise improves to the point of necessary expansion, I’ll buy my employees a steak dinner.

  3. Peter Beck’s well-staged pileophagy was certainly a cause for chuckles, but I expect few titters in a number of other quarters when his Neutron rocket debuts. Neutron looks easily capable of consuming the open commercial and/or U.S. government launch market shares of the NorGrum Pegasus, Antares and the various Minotaurs, the Arianespace Vega and Vega-C, the Russian Soyuz-2 and the Indian PSLV and SSLV. It could even steal a lot of whatever no doubt modest commercial business the Ariane 62 may attract in the interim.

    It’s been a bad few years for single-use rockets lately. The next few years are going to be even worse.

      1. Mine too. He has a Masterclass called “Werner Herzog Teaches Filmmaking” which I really enjoyed.

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