Ummmmm so, shouldn’t we all discuss the thing Rocket Lab has actually done but no NZ media or Government ever talk about?

ByMartyn Bradbury

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.

…in 2015, NZ quietly signed up to a 5 Eyes US Space programme that would allow Rocket Labs to launch US Military satellites from their Mahia Peninsula launchpad.

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?

 

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28 Comments

  1. This is seriously scary stuff, and it was reported in the Press yesterday.

    The whole business of Rocket Lab getting that R&D and then flogging it off to the yanks, what is in it for us, why don’t they have to return the government funding….

    1. The Press article didn’t even mention Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer, a major investor in Rocket Lab.
      An election is coming up yet the issue that concerns me most ie our military and espionage entanglements are not discussed…not even questioned. Why the silence from our media?
      I do wish (sigh) that NZ could become a centre for the promotion of diplomacy..peace and reconciliation.

      1. Yes , and make good on our reputation as a fair and independent nation , mainly forged through Labour govts (Kirk and Lange)
        It could be our brand
        The US refuses to negotiate a treaty banning the militarisation of space that Russia and China have put forward
        Both Nuclear powers that recognise the dangers and immense waste of money a space race poses
        The UN recognises the dire consequences of weapons in space but is stymied by the US
        I would like to know how NZ votes in the resolutions put forward in the General Assembly, and would really like a more transparent engagement with the public on foreign policy
        Lets start insisting on it
        “To prevent outer space from becoming another military battlefield, delegates today explored ways to establish a rules‑based order to securely govern that sphere, which they called “a common asset for humanity”, as the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) continued its work.”
        https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/gadis3609.doc.htm
        Statement from MFAT
        “New Zealand is a longstanding and proud supporter of the disarmament and non-proliferation movement globally.”
        We like to talk the talk but how about doing the mahi

  2. Company Beck has gone from polluting space with disco balls to perving on the world, surveilling people to kill and putting New Zealand at great risk. He will be praised for his sycophantic industriousness by psychopaths in this country and beyond.

    1. Lange said no to nukes which was ground breaking internationally but let r douglarse wreck our future.

    2. I’m with you Kheala ,
      Labour needs to find their balls and JUST SAY NO!!!!

  4. This should really be NZ’s “nuclear moment” of the 21st Century. It’s the equivalent situation, but we’re all now silently accepting? What has happened to us as a nation>

  5. Golriz was the first to raise the alarm on this, yet she has been sent back down the line by the Greens. Unless their decision was based on specific health concerns for her, it seems like a mean and rather stupid decision for them to make.

    1. Frankly she hasn’t performed, that is why she is further down the track. One thing, one thing is not enough. The members rank them not the heirarchy you know.

  6. Winston is only interested in Winston’s party remaining in there. You can see him ‘worrying’ about the demise of ‘Rio tinto’ plant but is he worrying about the 50,000 people unemployed in South and West Auckland na na na na PATHETIC!

  7. The P8s make us a target quite apart from their support role for this. Prior to the P8s, the air force had no strike capability. I didn’t understand why we would accept that new position – but this makes sense of it.

    1. FTT
      I get your reference to China but how does Russia fit into the comment.
      Could you explain your thinking please.

  8. When these nerds began launching satellites I was genuinely happy that smaller nations would now become able to do what the US does only from another angle so they could spot & then calculate drone flight-paths etc.
    Looking back the next move was predictable; of course the amerikans are going to buy into & control such a program even if they have no real use for it. Which seems likely as there is little rocket labs does that their own hugely expensive padded & corrupt arms & aeronautics industry doesn’t do.

    Of course it doesn’t sit well if some small company based in Aotearoa can chuck a spy eye in the sky for a few hundred thousand kiwi dollars when Lockheed & all their MIC mates split billions of USD every year for doing the same thing.
    Integrity? I don’t see how that figures when one of the earliest faces of rocket lab had the same name & appearance as a chap widely reputed to have invented home-baking (ie turning codeine an over the counter medication back then, into morphine a scheduled narcotic) who then sold the recipe for a few grand a pop back in the ’80s – if the two are connected, it is difficult to believe integrity would be a priority.

  9. I’m sure we’re not launching any nuclear powered satellite, or weapons.

    As for surveillance satellites .. more private sector, global mapping satellites – I’d imagine .. but some (All?? lol) of those companies will have links to the American Government.

    As for China, Russia, etc .. Rocket Lab would probably launch for them .. but then you might have the NZSIS snooping into matters .. payloads .. proprietary tech .. eek

    I’d imagine Rocket Lab could throw some alternative GPS guidance satellites up there for the US .. lot of anti-satellite weaponry going around .. put 2-n-2 together.

    The whole thing is a bit crazy .. reality is smaller nations like NZ that want a space industry have to deal with the bigger players.

    New Zealand is that friend who you like, but smells a little .. so you wind the car window down. Occasionally both America and China point out we smell .. but our pheromones keep them coming back .. and we’re alright dudes.

    eek, gross but true .. welcome to NZ.

    I do think it’s awesome that we’re sending rocket with payloads into space .. that’s one thing that makes me proud to be a Kiwi.

  11. Have you been to Hong Kong John? I have, a number of times. I’ve talked to a lot of ordinary HK people about how they see CCP rule and the independence protests. I can assure you, without hesitation, that the HK protests are a genuine popular uprising. The claims of “foreigner interference” are CCP propaganda and the “evidence” put forward for it evaporates when you scratch the surface.

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