Real Life: Peter Beck on how creative solutions helped Rocket Lab compete with rich rivals

The CEO of Rocket Lab says the company has “done some cool stuff, but there’s still a lot more to go” as it edges closer to its 50th launch.

Peter Beck, who founded Rocket Lab in 2006, says the company has always prided itself on its ability to innovate on a tight budget to compete with rivals with much deeper pockets.

In an interview with Newstalk ZB’s Real Life with John Cowan on Sunday night, Beck expressed his pride at the company being home to the world’s fourth most frequently launched rocket.

“Most rocket programmes in their entire life span don’t reach 50 launches generally, and 20 years is considered a good innings,” he said.

“So it’s good to be approaching that 50 mark in such a short timeframe.”

Asked whether it felt “unbelievable” to have footed it with the big boys of the industry, such as the billionaire-backed SpaceX and Virgin Orbit, Beck said it doesn’t.

“It’s just one foot in front of the other, you know? Look, we’ve grown a lot and done some cool stuff, but there’s still a lot more to go,” he told Cowan.

Much of that comes down to Rocket Lab’s innate ability to cut costs in creative ways.

Its early adoption of 3D printing technology, for instance, allowed it to turn the highly difficult and expensive task of building a rocket engine into a process that can now be completed start to finish in the space of 24 hours.

“We have a saying: ‘We have no money, so we have to think.’ That was stolen off Ernest Rutherford,” said Beck.

Rocket Lab CEO and Peter Beck at Buckingham Palace where King Charles III unveiled the Astra Carta framework, aimed at accelerating space sustainability efforts and goals. Photo / Supplied

“The more traditional approach [to starting Rocket Lab] would have been to do this out of America, and have bags and bags of money. And yet, the companies that were competitors to us when we first started, who had essentially unlimited resources, weren’t the ones that won in the end.

“I remember trying to raise money in Silicon Valley, stomping around trying to convince people that this little team in New Zealand, a country with no aerospace experience, were going to beat the likes of Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit, who were funded to the tune of $1.2 billion – pretty much exactly $1.1 billion more than we had.

“We weren’t perceived to be the winners, but with that kind of adversity, there’s certainly no room for waste of resources nor time.”

Beck says he believes the space industry is now at an inflection point – and much like artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the way that we work and think, space is “doing exactly the same thing”.

“This is probably the most transformational time to be alive, with respect to space, so the future is very exciting and very bright.”

• Real Life is a weekly interview show where John Cowan speaks with prominent guests about their life, upbringing, and the way they see the world. Tune in Sundays from 7.30pm on Newstalk ZB or listen to the latest full interview here.