00:31:28 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:31:28] S1: For a few $100 while also, like, creating the initial prototypes while also understanding that the finished version is going to be, like, this gorgeous thing? [00:31:37] S0: Yeah. Well, I mean, if you clean the fitting, it looks exactly like a brand new fitting, so you're not compromising anything in that respect. And so... And that you're putting a new ferrule on it, so that's the bit that's doing the work. So I think, you know, they're not separate things. And, you know, a piece of art that's done by an artist that sells for $500 versus something that sells for $5,000,000 I mean, they're still beautiful. So you don't need to equate, like, a price tag to beauty and quality of engineering. [00:32:13] S1: I remember you mentioned that the most stressful part of your life is launch day. [00:32:19] S0: Yeah. Hate launch [00:32:20] S1: day. I'm not even sure if you, like, enjoy launch day. [00:32:22] S0: No. I do. I I completely do not enjoy launch day. [00:32:25] S1: What was it like 2,009 when you guys launched your first rocket or test? And then also, you know, 2017 when you tried to make the first orbital attempt. [00:32:35] S0: The first flights are a little bit different. I mean, you want everything to go well, and you're willing everything to go well, and you've done everything you can to make everything go well, but it's a logical kind of understanding that it may not go well. It probably [00:32:50] S1: won't go well.
00:32:51 · Peter Beck
[00:32:51] S0: Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. So, Flight one, that's not so bad. That's not so bad because that's a test. It's worse later on, and the more you do, the worse it gets because, you know, it's still an extremely complicated vehicle and system and stuff, you know, even for the best of us, stuff goes wrong, right? Know, whole countries' vehicles are Yeah. All countries' vehicles also fail now and again, so it does happen. But I don't know. It's just I feel an immense sense of responsibility to our customers, to our shareholders. You know, people buy a rocket to deliver their payload to orbit. They don't buy a rocket to deliver their payload to the ocean. So, you know, I just feel a tremendous sense of responsibility to, you know, to make sure that their experience and their mission is delivered exactly right. And I think, you know, that's part of the Rocket Lab culture is every single person in this company takes the delivery of their thing or the end solution incredibly seriously. So, you know, whether it's a reaction wheel to a customer or an entire spacecraft or an entire mission, you know, we really care here. Like, when we deploy a satellite into orbit, you know, I think most people would think that our job is done, yes, and we all just go home, but everybody's hanging off, waiting for the customer to tell us we've had a successful contact of our spacecraft. It's not our part of the mission, but we just want that mission to be successful so badly that, you know, I don't think anybody in mission control, you know, has a sigh of relief until our customer comes back to us and said, 'Yep, we have made contact with our spacecraft, and the whole thing is successful for everybody. It really sucks when a customer forgets to tell us because there's like 100 people sitting back here going, Did the customer make contact or not? Even though our mission is over.
00:34:48 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:34:48] S1: What was the most stressful day of the last twenty years? [00:34:54] S0: Oh, man. You know, it's for me, it's like, yeah, when something has gone wrong. I mean, like a launch anomaly is just is like, this place is a morgue. Like, is, you know, if you're like a psychologist, you come in here, you make a killing because, you know, after a launch failure, it's just really tough, really, really tough because everybody is so invested in in all of that. [00:35:21] S1: There's this wonderful line, which is like entrepreneurship in its best form is basically going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. And I feel like every company that succeeds over time becomes very good at basically experiencing failure, learning from it quickly, and then moving on and just focusing on the next thing.
00:35:21 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:35:21] S1: There's this wonderful line, which is like entrepreneurship in its best form is basically going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. And I feel like every company that succeeds over time becomes very good at basically experiencing failure, learning from it quickly, and then moving on and just focusing on the next thing. [00:35:40] S0: Yeah, no, I'd say that's absolutely true. Yeah. You know, failure happens in all forms, like, there's big public failures, and then there's like, you know, someone's been working on this piece of hardware for the last three months, and it goes to the vibe table and falls to bits, you know, you still gotta go home, and they're like, that didn't work. If it wasn't for the prize of the space industry, I doubt anybody would do it because it's just, and when I say the prize, I mean the prize is like if you work on a launch vehicle, seeing a rocket fly. Like, you know, people will just absolutely work their ass off, and then a rocket will fly, and they're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go do it again! Like, it's just like this adrenaline hit that you get that keeps everybody going. If there wasn't that kind of, you know, almost climax of event, then whether it be a rocket or a spacecraft being launched or whatever, I'm not sure everybody would do this job because it is, you know, it is just constantly tough.
00:36:40 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:36:40] S1: For the first, like, twelve years of the company, you're basically an R and D organization where you just needed to design something that actually worked and, you know, show that it worked. And then in, like, 2018, you make the first orbital success launch, and suddenly that shifts. And I remember you mentioning that, basically, once you have a product that works, now the job is to go and sell it and, like, actually get customers and actually start scaling that up. What was it like transitioning from a company culture of just designing, developing, iterating to something that's actually scaling up rocket production and shipping? [00:37:16] S0: Yeah, that's a good question. You know, in a previous life, among other things, I was a production design engineer, so I know what good production really looks like. And I would say it's taking a product from, you know, an R and D standpoint into full volume production is a whole different set of skills and a whole different set of pain. And, you know, there's times during the Electron scale up that it was just incredibly, incredibly painful because, you know, it was difficult to, you know, get all that DNA built within the company. But, you know, I look back now, and it's like, it's just such a core strength across the whole organisation. You know, and I think any... Every startup goes from that, right, to developing their their first widget or thing and then scaling it. I mean, those scaling challenges are real.
00:37:16 · Peter Beck, Ty Morse
[00:37:16] S0: Yeah, that's a good question. You know, in a previous life, among other things, I was a production design engineer, so I know what good production really looks like. And I would say it's taking a product from, you know, an R and D standpoint into full volume production is a whole different set of skills and a whole different set of pain. And, you know, there's times during the Electron scale up that it was just incredibly, incredibly painful because, you know, it was difficult to, you know, get all that DNA built within the company. But, you know, I look back now, and it's like, it's just such a core strength across the whole organisation. You know, and I think any... Every startup goes from that, right, to developing their their first widget or thing and then scaling it. I mean, those scaling challenges are real. [00:38:07] S1: This, like, idea of production hell, and, you know, you finally have the thing that works, and then suddenly the biggest fire is no longer making the thing work, it's just scaling the production of the thing that works. What was it like kind of going through production hell, like, for rockets?