KEY POINTS:
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to have dreams of getting into space, as proved by the directors of Auckland company Rocket Lab, which is trying to get a New Zealand aerospace industry off the ground.
Before that has a hope of happening, though, the year-old company has to launch its first rocket, which it intends doing a year from now.
Even before then, Rocket Lab co-owners Peter Beck and Mark Rocket (Mark Stevens before a name change seven years ago) will be touting for business overseas as part of a New Zealand Trade and Enterprise mission in November to Vancouver and Seattle.
Their optimism that anyone would give the time of day to a tiny company with no space experience springs from a couple of sources.
Last year, Christchurch-based Rocket attended the Nasa-sponsored International Space Development conference in Los Angeles, where the industry buzz rubbed off on him.
"More than US$2 billion is being poured into the private space industry so far and it looks like there's a lot more to follow," Rocket says.
There's good reason to think some of that money could come here, he reckons.
As a base from which to get into space, New Zealand has the advantage of uncluttered skies, sound infrastructure and talented people.
And we have historical space connections. A New Zealander, Wellington-born William Pickering, was a key figure in early US efforts to colonise space.
Pickering, who died in 2004, headed the Nasa programme that sent unmanned missions to the moon, Venus and Mars in the 1960s. He is a hero for Rocket.
"I think a lot of people would argue that the unmanned Nasa programmes were even more successful than the manned stuff," Rocket says.
Some of the investment that is livening up the private space industry is from Nasa, which has embarked on the Constellation programme in an effort to put humans back on the moon by 2020, with Mars as the next stop.
But private companies are where the greatest excitement is. Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has teamed up with US space flight pioneer Burt Rutan in a space tourism venture that plans to start carrying fare-paying passengers by 2009. Rocket has put down $300,000 for a seat.
Rutan, whose SpaceFlightOne craft in 2004 successfully carried a pilot into space and back twice in a fortnight, winning a US$10 million prize along the way, attacked Nasa for lack of ambition in an address at last year's conference.
The space agency's conservatism can be seen in the decision to base Constellation's Ares I and V rockets on boosters used during the Apollo programme.
Rutan calls it "space archaeology" and Rocket agrees. "They developed this stuff in the '50s and '60s and they haven't really progressed," Rocket says.
The public is understandably disappointed that the space hotels and moon bases written about decades ago haven't eventuated, he says.
Nonetheless, Nasa remains the superpower of space exploration and, if Rocket Lab is to flourish, it could well end up working for the US agency.
But the Auckland company's ambitions are more modest at this stage.
Beck, who has taught himself rocketry during the past 13 years, says their inaugural flight will send a 5.5m rocket, Atea (Maori for space), to a height of 150km. Ares V, by comparison, will be more than 100m tall and will lift 130 tonnes into a low-earth orbit (between 200 and 2000km).
Atea is a two-stage rocket, the first burning 187kg of solid fuel for 12 seconds, taking it to a height of 13km.
The second smaller booster will burn for nine seconds, lifting the rocket to 35km and a speed of about 4800km/h, from where it will sail upwards for another 115km. Getting it into space will cost up to US$80,000 a time, depending on payload.
Beck says the inaugural flight, which will be "a demonstrator to New Zealand and the world", will have a probable payload of about 25kg.
"On board, I'm really keen to have some university experiments as well as some serious science experiments."
Not to mention ashes of people willing to pay to have them scattered in space.
Rocket, who is bankrolling Rocket Lab from the proceeds of a successful internet business, is coy about how much money he has to put into the venture but says the cost of setting up a space business is "not insignificant".
He says they are serious about making it into a commercially viable business as a platform for scientific experiments.
"We're a few decades late but, finally, stuff is really starting to move."
Why aerospace?
* While Nasa is accused of stagnating, the private space industry is booming. Virgin Galactic plans to launch its space tourism venture in 2009, with seats on sale for $300,000 each.
* Rocket Lab sees business opportunities in the Northern Hemisphere and plans to make contacts on a trip to Seattle and Vancouver in November.
* New Zealand could be a good base for aerospace projects because of its uncluttered skies, sound infrastructure and talented people.
* Rocket Lab's first rocket, the 5.5m Atea, should reach a height of 150km.
* Anthony Doesburg is an Auckland-based technology journalist.
