Being a scientific moron, it was no surprise that much of last weeks NZ Rocketry Association workshop went over my head, so to speak. But it was still great to hear Peter Beck, the intellectual force behind Rocket Labs, talking about the first NZ space launch scheduled for next month.
In between having my brain warped by numbers large (900degrees: how hot the nose-cone gets) and small (30 microseconds: the time your rocket is exposed to the risk of shaking itself to pieces, if you do it right), there were a few things I grasped.
1. Forget about buying aerospace stuff from the USA. They are so paranoid about security that they have laws that make it extremely difficult for foreigners to buy their stuff.
2. Light is right. This old tramping club maxim also rules in space, but again the Americans don’t get it. Rocket Labs, following the intellectual footsteps of the late great John Britten, are using carbon fibre for everything while NASA sticks with aluminium & steel even for small rockets.
3. Flight is risky. Pretty obvious really, but from a strategic angle it is better to be designing, building and selling rockets than launching them.
Peter Beck is a seriously impressive guy. He looked as if he’d been working day & night for a while, which would be understandable given the size of the stakes in the upcoming launch. But he was fizzing with energy & enthusiasm and appeared (to this moron’s eye) to be completely conversant with the arcane details of every single aspect of rocket design & flight control, and expert in many of them. Peter’s aim is to establish an aerospace industry in NZ, a lofty goal that will be much closer if next month’s launch vehicle does safely fly 100kms up as intended. Fingers crossed.
By the way, the local rocket folks seemed well into it. At question time, one of them asked about the avionics kit and whether it could be bought. Peter affirmed, and then turned it around, asking if anyone had a “reliable rocket” that was ready to fly and could be used to test the avionics module. One of the locals must have been up for that, because Peter’s avionics module will be flight-tested tomorrow at Taupiri.
Good luck to all of you, and thanks to Joel Schiff.
Peter Beck is carrying on the fine tradition of Burt Munro and as John says, John Britten, in doing something extraordinary – the Kiwi way. Thank goodness for the likes of people like this.