00:00You have been a public company for quite a while. You two are getting something of a boost from this.
00:05What do you think people have
00:06gotten wrong about investing in space until now when they're starting to pay attention.
00:12You know I think space is kind of an interesting opportunity. I mean it's it's relatively new to the market.
00:17And you know we
00:19listed a few years ago now and and really are probably the really the only pure play space company at
00:27scale here on the
00:28public markets. So you know it's great that when SpaceX lists it brings a lot of eyeballs and interest and
00:35and you
00:36know good research to the sector. So I think you know I think net net it's you know it's it's
00:42it's a good thing for the
00:43whole space industry. Does it make you concerned that the competitive draw from SpaceX will be overwhelming for
00:49Rocket Lab. No I don't think so. You know the reality is that you know SpaceX is a space company
00:57but it's
00:57also very much an AI company and a bunch of other things as well. And but you know Rocket Lab
01:03is you
01:04know a very very squarely focused you know pure play space company. And you know as I said before it's
01:09you know I think it draws investors into the sector and and when they go looking you know Rocket Lab
01:15is
01:15really the clear number two with respect to you know launch frequency and those kinds of things. So
01:20so no I think it I'm not too worried about that. So do you find yourself complimentary to SpaceX or
01:26are
01:26you in direct competition with Elon Musk? Oh in some in some cases in direct competition but but also
01:32very complimentary. You know we are an end-to-end space company so you know we're the second most
01:38frequently launched rocket US rocket in the world behind SpaceX. So you know the rocket bit of it is
01:45is competitive but you know two-thirds of our business is building satellites and spacecraft
01:50and supplying merchant components to the rest of the space industry. So you know that in that sense
01:56you know not really a competitor at all. How do you expect a fun growth in the future given how
02:01expensive launches are? Yeah well I mean we're one of the things that we've been extremely good at over
02:07the years is we've been very very capital efficient. So you know Rocket Lab was was born from a tiny
02:13little town at the very bottom of New Zealand. So it wasn't born with with the backing of you know
02:20large capital resources. So we've always had to be super scrappy and and and very you know very
02:26efficient with our capital and that that continues. And but luckily it's saying that you know over the
02:3220 years of Rocket Lab's history we've never struggled to raise the capital we need to be able to do
02:36the
02:36things that we also need to do. And you know in the public markets you know we're we're you know
02:42obviously
02:42that gave us access to a larger quantum of capital and we've been able to grow you know as you
02:47can see
02:48very very quickly in the last couple of years. Peter can you lay out what the business case is for
02:53the space
02:53economy. And this comes at a time when as you mentioned SpaceX has a lot of different competing factors.
02:59They have of course the question of launching into space but also AI and also connectivity.
03:04Is it a national security issue? Is it getting to Mars? How do you see the space economy evolving as
03:10central to the economy here on Earth? Well there's a funny thing because you know it's it's hidden
03:16infrastructure. So you know nobody can really see the satellites apart from a whizzing star in the sky
03:21in a nice clear night. But the reality is that just about everybody's lives all the time is being
03:26influenced and touched by space. Whether you're in order order a pizza and arrives at your door well
03:31actually that was all space enabled through the GPS constellation. And whether you you know you're
03:36thinking about getting married on a day and you look at the weather and that's all coming from space.
03:41So space is kind of one of those things that it's like water in the pipes that it's it's hidden
03:45infrastructure and people don't realize just you know how much they use it. But in saying that you
03:50know that the growth in the industry is tremendous because it used to be just the domain of governments.
03:55You know space is really well and truly now the domain for commercial enterprise and that
04:00democratization of spaces is you know what you've seen just grow tremendously in over the last sort of
04:07few years. Are you worried that right now the amount of money being raised will dampen enthusiasm
04:13for this sector over the next few years if there isn't the same kind of outperformance as some of the
04:19capital raises seem to be promising right now. Yeah well I mean that that that's a fact I mean
04:24you know it's all about execution at this point. And you know once again that's that's been something
04:30that that we've been well rewarded for is is is execution. So yeah of course if if you
04:35raise large quantumism of capital and then don't execute then people people don't look look very
04:40favorably upon you. But you know I guess you know for us we've we've we've been able to hold that
04:46execution so and being rewarded but you know it is a risk in any fast-growing sector and there's
04:53always people that you know promise a lot and might not be able to deliver. Peter how far are
04:58we away from real data centers in space? Well there's a quite a there's a few technical issues to solve
05:05but you know the the physics is sound sound it can be done. I'm not really worried about the you
05:11know
05:11the technical issues there. I'm more interested in the pure economics of it all because
05:16you know if you think about data centers it requires a couple of major things to happen
05:21you know reduction of launch costs and and you know scaling of a number of technologies
05:26and that's going to be in direct competition to you know the cost of electricity down here on earth.
05:32So you know I think you know I don't think it's a sure thing that all data centers are moving
05:36to
05:36space. I think there absolutely will be some for strategic and defense reasons but I think we're also
05:42you know it's a bit of a bake-off between you know how quickly can can those you know those
05:47orders
05:47of magnitude and change and cost reductions occur in space versus down here on earth.
05:52you
05:52you
05:52you
Comments