There really does seem to be an enormous double standard at work in NZ.
Air NZ were rightfully dragged over the coals for doing maintenance work on Saudi military equipment currently accused of war crimes, but the media see utterly silent when it comes to Rocket Labs and their direct connection to the US Military Industrial Complex.
This is the detail of Rocket Lab’s next launch this month…
Gunsmoke-J, formerly named Jacob’s Ladder, are experimental 3U CubeSats designed by the US Army SMDC (Space Missile Defense Command) to demonstrate advanced information collection in direct support of the Army combat operations.
The satellites consist of a LANL built Prometheus Block-2 1.5U CubeSat featuring the attached 1.5U Gunsmoke-J experiment module. Power and communications are handled via the Prometheus bus. Gunsmoke-J uses emerging advanced electronics to allow the use of dedicated intelligence assets to provide tactically actionable targeting data to warfighters on a responsive and persistent timeline.
Three flight units have been built.
Launch of one is planned for March 2021 on a shared Electron Photon-LEO launch.
…Rocket Labs are the NZ Franchise of the US Military Industrial Complex and our launch site operates as a secondary launch pad for American military interests. Rocket Lab fires rockets into space for the secretive National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) this is their charming patch…
…nothing erodes faith in the check and balance of extreme power quite like a giant orange space octopus proclaiming that nothing is out of its reach. Unbeknownst to most NZers, Rocket Lab is a Military Industrial Complex franchise, not some plucky Number 8 Wire Dad Shed schlock that Rocket Lab like to project to the sleepy hobbits of Muddle Nu Zilind…
Rocket Lab’s link with the CIA’s venture capital firm was revealed in 2016 by US investigative journalism site The Intercept, but has not been reported by the New Zealand media.
Although it operates independently, In-Q-Tel invests on behalf of the CIA and the broader US intelligence community in companies whose products may have national security applications.
A document obtained by The Intercept shows that Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck spoke at a summit of In-Q-Tel portfolio companies in February 2016. Other speakers included then-FBI director James Comey. Beck earlier wrote about Rocket Lab for In-Q-Tel’s quarterly publication in 2015.
In contrast, Lockheed Martin’s investment in Rocket Lab is mentioned routinely in press coverage and was the subject of a jibe by departing Vector chairman Michael Stiassny to the Vector AGM last week.
However, the extent of Rocket Lab’s defence industry work has gone essentially unremarked. Details of this work had been removed from Rocket Lab’s website by the time the regulatory regime enabling the company’s activities in New Zealand came into law last year.
Put aside the zero public debate of whether or not we should get this close to the American Military Industrial Complex in the first place and note that no one ever explained to the NZ public how allowing Rocket Labs to launch US military satellites immediately upgrades NZ to being a legitimate military target!
Because of this, Chinese Subs and Russian Subs will legitimately sit off the East Coast of NZ targeting the launch site.
THIS is why we needed to buy 4 P-8s! Because America is able to launch military satellites from NZ, which makes us a target and we need to defend that target with sub hunting planes!
New sub-killer planes may never fire in anger but Govt wants the option
Defence Minister Ron Mark has announced the Government will buy four Boeing P-8A Poseidons to replace the defence force’s ageing fleet of P-3K Orions. The purchase has been a longtime coming.
The P-8s, known as submarine killers, mark a new era in defence procurement, with one expert calling this the most significant defence purchase in a generation.
…so under National, we signed up to a military space programme through our 5 Eyes network that has now made us a legitimate military target which we need to buy sub hunting planes and torpedoes for???
If we can demand accountability from Air NZ, why won’t w from Rocket Labs?
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Humanity has survived for hundreds of thousands of years without Beck’s spy drones and Elon’s space junk, we don’t need them now. These technocrats don’t want to explore the universe (these satellites are looking inward not out) or bring the internet to every isolated tribe (do they really need the western capitalist ideals, left wing news propaganda, cat videos and pornography that bad?), they want to perve on and bomb humankind at their leisure to satisfy their paranoia, their lust for power, their need to enslave, their sick greed, to spread their warped ideology and to murder those who oppose their destructive future
EW
And the war on their own people controlled by a small group of Billionaires internationally linked through several organisations.
Maybe we could export Rocket Lab to Aus.
It would be away from major quake fault lines over there.
Less risk of harm to our fragile ecosystems, coast and wider environment.
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