Can we finally admit Rocket Labs makes us a legitimate military target now?
Rocket Lab nets major Pentagon contract
Rocket Lab, which launches from Mahia and from the US, has won into a Pentagon contract, with up to $NZ10 billion to spread around.
It becomes one of five launch companies that get to compete for missions under the National Security Space Launch, or NSSL, programme.
NSSL puts up the United States’ most valuable military and spy satellites, with 30 launches due by 2029.
The New Zealand origin-US listed company gets an initial $9m to work on it.
It aims to use the Neutron, a new mid-sized rocket due for its first launch later this year, which can carry larger payloads than its workhorse Electron rocket.
It’s good that there is growing skepticism about Rocket Lab…
Rocket Lab: Peter Beck defends spy satellite work, ex-director speaks of leaving
Rocket Lab’s meteoric rise in the global space industry hit turbulence recently with its first operational mission loss. Meanwhile, questions continue over its launch of US intelligence satellites from New Zealand soil.
Stuff reporter George Block sat down with co-founder and chief executive Peter Beck at the company’s Auckland factory. He also spoke to the company’s seed investor and former co-director Mark Rocket, who parted ways with the company in 2011 after it started taking defence contracts.
…the problem is that this debate isn’t going far enough because what the vast majority of New Zealander’s have no idea about is how Rocket Lab and the National Party have made us, for the first time in NZ’s history, a genuine military target.
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???
When will it be made clear to the rest of the electorate that we have done this and put everyones lives at risk by Rocket Lab making us a legitimate military target?
So are we going to talk about Rocket Lab welding us to Trump’s Military Industrial Complex?
Can we finally admit Rocket Labs makes us a legitimate military target now?
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For some reason the sheep (enough of them with influence anyway) feel safer having uncle Sam as the shepherd although it is increasingly obvious how dumb that idea is. The other topic we avoid is that there is a spiritual reason things happen as well as we cling to the idea that small changes over long periods of time can explain our existence.
Why just pick on Rocket Lab there are few rules in any war .Rocket Lab would be a target as would all military and domestic airports
.We are in 5 eyes so all of NZ is classified as a Western Nation so it is good to at least be a good partner .
Plenty of well paid jobs for those working there.
Its at odds with Rocket Labs earlier guarantees that they would not be involved with military applications.Received 25million from NZ taxpayers to get momentum.
I think that’s the issue, Rocket Labs like portray themselves as a plucky little NZ “space” company. I don’t think they make us any more of a military target then we would have been, but they are not honest about who they are and what they do.
Rocket Lab is actually a United States based company. The soon to be launched Neutron rocket will be launched solely from the United States at Rockets Lab’s Virginia launch site. The Neutron will be the only Rocket Lab rocket capable of launching fully operational NSSL satellites, so they will only be launched from the USA.
Yes, Peter Beck is a New Zealander and yes, the New Zealand factory builds the Electron rocket with most launches from Mahia. However these are small payloads (<300 kg) and are largely experimental or research satellites, even if they are a DAPRA payload.
Once Neutron is fully operational, with the capacity to launch payloads of 8,000 kg, then well over 90% of Rocket Lab's activity will be in the US.
A relatively small rocket such as the Electron (which can actually be transported on a truck) does not make New Zealand a target. It would be utterly pointless to do so, since the Mahia launch facility has no actual military significance.
Absolute nonsense. Beck is a traitor to New Zealand, his citizenship should be stripped for his treason.
No he is a New Zealander you halfwit, and no you can’t strip him of his citizenship.
Then again I’m surprised you don’t want to see him arrested by your fundamentalist thug police, tortured and executed.
Oh there are many, many things that should happen to that american-loving rat.