00:17:12 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:17:12] S1: Don't want you to be sleep deprived when you come [00:17:14] S0: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no, exactly right So, we just, you know, everybody, it was just nobody slept at all, and we just worked and worked and worked. And, you know, we were rebuilding this engine and we knew there was a couple of things in the engine that were like, you know, we would have liked to fix at some point in time, but they were risky, like if we, you know, we made some changes to an injector and, you know, it might not have worked, but we're like, oh, well, at this point, like, let's just go for it. So, we made a whole bunch of changes to the engine and we changed, you know, what we thought, you know, some of the injectors and some of the parts of the engine we thought would improve its performance. And then, you know, we got this whole engine back together and got it on the test cell at Monday morning and our very important friends turned up and they were like 'hey guys, how you going?' We got 'good, good, right, ready for an engine test, yep' and you know we hot fired that engine and that was the first time that engine had been hot fired since a rebuilt engine, you know, test cell and a brand new engine with all these modifications And I think most companies would have played it safe and just said, Let's rebuild it exactly as it was. But, you know, we built this new engine, and that new engine performed 13% better than the previous one, which in rocket engines' perspective is a huge number. [00:18:26] S1: Over the course of a weekend?
00:18:26 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:18:26] S1: Over the course of a weekend? [00:18:27] S0: Yeah. And completely rebuilt the engine, and that engine ran for the next nearly a month, just day after day doing hot fire after hot fire and tweaking things and doing different experiments that everybody wanted to do and all the rest of it. So, you know, that's a Rocket Lab hustle. I mean, it's, you know, I think a lot of people would go, well, you know... Yeah. Pretty much. [00:18:52] S1: What happens after that sort of event, like internally? How do people kind of react to being able to overcome something that feels insurmountable or impossible? [00:19:01] S0: That's a great question. Generally, there's the next big thing, so you're just on to the next big thing. And, you know, there's been a couple of couple of these kind of really big things, like the capstone mission was a really big one. That a totally impossible project. I still, to this day, don't know how we pulled it off, but that was a totally impossible project. [00:19:20] S1: Do you want to just walk through what that was? [00:19:22] S0: Why it was so That was a much mission to the moon. Yeah. So, you know, we had signed the Capstone mission, and we had to deliver the spacecraft to the moon, and, you know, it's off an Electron rocket, so, you know, going to the moon off a tiny little rocket [00:19:36] S1: is 7 to $9,000,000?
00:19:36 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:19:36] S1: is 7 to $9,000,000? [00:19:38] S0: Yeah. Yeah, it was $10,000,000 Yeah. But it, like, on paper it closed, but in practice it was the most ridiculously hard thing to, you know, we were measuring grams in that rocket. And, you know, there was like a three hour debate whether or not we could afford the mass of the NASA stickers down the side of the rocket because the mass of those stickers would, you know, put us over the edge. So, it was the most ridiculously difficult engineering project. And, you know, we delivered that spacecraft to the moon with such perfect accuracy. It incredible, but there were so many firsts there. There was a, you know, the rocket engine that was on the little spacecraft that took it to the moon was the highest performing engine that we have ever built. And, you know, we had a separate tank of 11 herbs of spices that we would inject into the engine to just make it run super hot. So, you know, it was the craziest, craziest project. And, you know, even today, you can ask people around company what their best moment was at Rocket Lab, and anybody working on Capstone, or just about anybody, will say Capstone even though it was the most punishing and cruelest mission that we ever did. [00:20:55] S1: What's your kind of philosophy on chewing glass and enjoying taking on extremely difficult challenges with uncertainty on whether or not they can't even be successful?
00:20:55 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:20:55] S1: What's your kind of philosophy on chewing glass and enjoying taking on extremely difficult challenges with uncertainty on whether or not they can't even be successful? [00:21:05] S0: Yeah, well, I mean, I think that is the definition of a good start up. But I would temper that with, yeah, okay, you're chewing glass, but also you can't just do that and not know the outcome or, you know, sometimes you have to force the outcome to be good. That's a fact. But also, I would say everything that we take on, we honestly believe we can do. Now, sometimes our belief is unfounded, but generally, you know, we won't take on something that we just will not have a clue about how we're going to achieve. So, yep, I think that's a fair statement, but I think I'd temper that with like, don't be reckless with that because [00:21:50] S1: It's like you build trust with the people that you're working with, and so if you fuck up, then that trust is broken.
00:21:50 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:21:50] S1: It's like you build trust with the people that you're working with, and so if you fuck up, then that trust is broken. [00:21:56] S0: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I would hope that if you went out to the industry and said, What does Rocket Lab known for or stand for? It's like, Hardware is beautiful and it always works. And that might sound just like, Yeah, of course, but that is not the norm in this industry. So, you know, when we take on stuff, we absolutely commit to delivering it. I mean, the Capstone Project was, you know, NASA paid us $10,000,000 and we were three times over budget. Now, I think other companies would have just pulled out, and it's like, to hell with that, we've made this commitment, we are going to deliver that, and it is going to be successful. And it was. It was flawless. [00:22:33] S1: And did that kind of basically give you a whole bunch of credibility for future missions? [00:22:38] S0: Yeah, I mean, with respect to interplanetary and even launch, I mean, NASA knows when they come to us, it will be done, and it will work. I mean, just like the escapade missions, you know, those escapade spacecraft, deeply complete two spacecraft going to Mars, not just one, and delivered on time, on budget to NASA.
00:22:38 · Peter Beck, Ty Morse
[00:22:38] S0: Yeah, I mean, with respect to interplanetary and even launch, I mean, NASA knows when they come to us, it will be done, and it will work. I mean, just like the escapade missions, you know, those escapade spacecraft, deeply complete two spacecraft going to Mars, not just one, and delivered on time, on budget to NASA. [00:22:57] S1: I know Elon mostly spends his time trying to basically figure out whatever the biggest bottleneck in one of his companies is, and then he goes to that bottleneck and he doesn't leave until it's sorted, then and he just goes to whatever the next fire is, and he says basically like, if things are going well, then you probably won't even hear from me. Do you think the differences between, or maybe similarities between your and Elon's philosophy and management style and how you operate? [00:23:20] S0: Yeah. I mean, I I think that's that's probably similar. Like, I'm not adding value to anything that's running great. Like, you know, it might feel good, but I'm not adding any value to that whatsoever. [00:23:29] S1: Show up. Do you just give the thumbs up and, like, yes?