Inside Rocket Lab: How Sir Peter Beck Is Building Neutron’s Engines | Tour 02

0:00Sir Peter Beck:That was the old Virgin Orbit facility. There was over a hundred million dollars worth of asset in that building and we managed to buy the whole thing for 16 million dollars. What? This is an Electron, this is the rocket that we fly the most of right now so it's flown 93 times the second most frequently launched rocket in the world behind the Falcon 9. This line right now can produce one engine every eight days. There's over 930 engines that have been to space. We've got two engine test cells and that runs 20 hours a day, seven days a week. Do you keep a tracking list of all the potentially bankrupt space companies?

0:32Which facilities you want to buy? Yep. Who's at the top of the list? Oh, nothing happened. I would say that.

0:36Sir Peter Beck:That'll get me in trouble.

0:48Alright, so now we're riding over to the Engine Propulsion Lab.

0:53Sir Peter Beck:Engine Development Center, technically. EDC. Okay, technically engine development center. How long did it take you guys to build out this entire facility? And are you going to be buying more buildings here? Oh, I hate buying real estate. It's my pet peeve because there's just so much of it. And it's just a cost. Well, this building we kind of stood up fresh. Where we're taking you, EDC, was arguably one of the best deals of my life. Yeah. Because that was the old Virgin Orbit facility. And, you know, there was over$100 million worth of asset in that building. And we managed to buy the whole thing for$16 million.

1:35What?

1:36Sir Peter Beck:Yeah, I know. It was the fantastic contribution from Sir Richard Branson to the space industry. One sir to another sir. Wow. So what was the process like for flipping that over? Well, it happened really, really fast. They were in bankruptcy and we saw it sort of come up and we all just actually piled into golf carts like this, hanging off the back and nipped down there and made it happen. And you got to take all of the equipment inside? Oh yeah, all the machines, everything. That's pretty convenient. Oh yeah, it was great. I mean, we didn't ever have to worry about a factory building engines ever again.

2:11Sir Peter Beck:Like we're totally sorted. Do you keep a tracking list of all the potentially bankrupt space companies and which facilities you want to buy? Yep. Who's at the top of the list? Oh, no, I'm not saying that. That'll get me in trouble.

2:26I'm assuming there's going to be more.

2:28Sir Peter Beck:Oh, there is. There's going to be a bunch more. The funny thing is, like, space companies are really hard to kill. Like, the amount of space companies that should be dead and not the sort of zombie companies is quite incredible. It's not like other industries where, you know, you go to die, you just die. Like space companies tend to linger for quite some time. Why is that? I don't know. They just seem to... How do they continually get funding? Yeah, it's a great question. No, I can't... People just love space so much? Yeah, I think, and there's always enthusiasts that, you know... The thing about space is that it's awesome that somebody can be really, really kind of...

3:10Sir Peter Beck:forward leaning and promotional and everyone gets excited. But the downside to space is exactly the same thing. Where, you know, it's really difficult to understand and comprehend. So, you know, people can stand up and make these claims and it's really, really hard to corroborate unless you like go five layers deep into the rocket equation. So... Who has been the best at that kind of diligence and research that you found?

3:38Sir Peter Beck:Hmm, as investors? Are investors actually good at doing that? Not really. Not really. Because you see so many, you see a company that's just objectively terrible. And they just continue to get funding. There's just new investor after new investor after new investor. But sometimes the really big firms that you think are really good at it actually are the worst. Damn. So we're right next to the airport. Do you fly your helicopter over here? No, no, no. No, that's purely a New Zealand activity. All right, we're now going to see the Engine Development Center. Exactly right. How did you guys structure out this facility?

4:20So you have all these different units. What are we going to see?

4:23Sir Peter Beck:So there's a whole big machine shop in here. There's probably one of the largest 3D print shops you're going to see.

4:32Sir Peter Beck:So one of the things that we pioneered early on with Electron was our... was our 3D printing of engines. So most of the Rutherford engine is 3D printed and most of the Archimedes engine is 3D printed. So you should see some cool stuff. How many times do you do this tour? You're typically taking the Space Force on this tour? Oh, yeah, yeah, but... I try and outsource that as much as possible, I think. useful for other things. What are we gonna start with? We're gonna go in here, we're gonna go into additive manufacturing. Oh my God. So these are all 3D printers, so additive manufacturing, and at least by mass, the vast majority of all of our engines are 3D printed.

5:26Sir Peter Beck:And we have some really, really unique processes in here as well. So if you have a look at this one here,

5:39Sir Peter Beck:So that's a thrust chamber for Archimedes and that's getting clad. So that's actually copper and then we clad it with a super alloy over the top. We use 3D printing because we're able to incorporate a whole bunch of geometry into one kind of design. You know we're not stupid, we don't like 3D print bolts and all that sort of stuff, but we really become very good at designing these really complex architectures that if you if you can get away with it in your 3d print you can basically print multiple parts all in one part and at the end of the day it's all about speed and cost yeah so you know an archimedes engine is an incredibly cheap engine same with a rutherford engine it's it's just ridiculously so so building engines fast building engines cheap that are high performance i mean there's probably about 10 people that run this whole shop so it's it's all automated wow so there's a variety of machines, a variety of materials.

6:34Sir Peter Beck:So we print, you know, in-canal super alloys, copper, titanium, basically any material you can imagine, including our own material that we developed specially for the Archimedes engine. So there's a whole lab back there with material scientists developing new materials, you know, for that particular engine and environment. What are the biggest differences? Obviously there are some between Archimedes and Rutherford. Well, so the Rutherford is an electric pump cycle, whereas Archimedes is a staged combustion cycle. And just the scale of the engines are, you know, we'll go and have a look at some, but are enormously different.

7:16Sir Peter Beck:So, yeah, it's a much more complicated cycle and a much, much larger engine. And different fuel types? Different fuel types. Okay. But in saying that, a lot of the kind of, I get the ethos of how you do it has remained the same. So, you know, how we do injectors and how we, you know, combine multiple parts into an engine, it all remains the same. What's your favorite part? Oh, the favorite part of any, like, engine builder is the injector, because that's where the magic happens, the black magic happens. Everything else is to, you know, contain that mixing and produce thrust, but the injector and the turbo pump, those are those two bits that are pretty cool.

7:56Do you go out there? Where do you test these?

7:58Sir Peter Beck:So we have an engine test facility in Stennis, Mississippi. so we've got two two engine test cells out there that's pretty far from here yeah yeah but I mean we're spread literally right across the world not this is this feels very close um but you know so Mississippi we've got two engine test cells and that runs um 20 hours a day seven days a week so it's just firing firing engines all the time and then down in New Zealand we have an engine test cell for the Rutherford um and you know we produce um one Rutherford engine every day So to support that program. That's wild. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Brex, my favorite.

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9:55to train superintelligence. Visit Turing.com slash S-O-U-R-C-E-R-Y. The machines are getting smaller and then they're getting bigger.

10:04Sir Peter Beck:Yeah. Well, there's actually a really, really big machine. It's going to turn up next year, which will be the largest. What is it? Well, it basically can do a whole Archimedes engine in one print. Really? Which is tall as me, yeah. Where did you find it? These guys make it, so the same people. yep but we're the first customer of it in the world yeah. Would you go and have a look and I'll just check this one's running first.

10:37Yep.

10:47So what are we looking at here?

10:48Sir Peter Beck:So this is a laser powder machine. So there's 12 lasers in there and we're basically sinning the metal together to make a part, which the technology has been around for quite a while, but the speed and the complexity of the part that we make here is pretty crazy. How expensive is this? They're not cheap machines. There's like a couple million? Oh yeah, no. Tens? Yeah, yeah. A hundred? No, not a hundred. No? No, I mean, yeah, for these big machines, it's sort of, you know, less than 10 million. But, you know, for some machines, it can be more. Do you have a favorite machine? They're all my favorite machines.

11:29Sir Peter Beck:They're all your favorite. Never choose one. That'll be the one that gives you the grief. Mesmerizing. You can literally stand there for hours. You're not careful. You get a live cam on this. Yeah, you get no work done. So how long does it take from powder to engine? Depends on the size of the part. I think our longest print is like three and a half days, somewhere around there. Yeah. Yep. For people that don't know, what is the biggest difference between your engines and the other engines that are on the market? Well, I think our engines are very much designed for the Neutron vehicle. And it is a reusable launch vehicle at its heart.

12:05Sir Peter Beck:So what that means is our approach to engine design is slightly different than an expendable engine. Because an expendable engine needs to run for 190 seconds on the first stage say and then it never needs to run again whereas you know a reusable vehicle especially the way we're doing it we want to just run and run and run and run so you know the qualification burn time for an Archimedes engine is one hour so the engine you know has to do 40 starts and run for one hour and whereas you know Rutherford for Electron because it's a single use engine like its qualification or its you know acceptance test is is like five minutes wow so it only needs to run because it only needs to run for 190 seconds in its life so five minute run is pretty much enough what is the biggest engineering difference they have to make just just designing it for that longevity because um i'm not going to say it's relatively easy to make a you know an engine run for a short period of time it's still difficult especially with a staged combustion but it's just way harder to make like a staged combustion engine run for one hour and just not even worry about it running for one hour.

13:10I was talking to someone else, but I was so excited that when we started doing these interviews and these tours, they took off and we ended up on the fun side of this new re-industrialization and renaissance.

13:23Sir Peter Beck:I really enjoy your work. I think it's fantastic. Thank you. I think a lot of people these days, they're just always focusing on the doom and gloom of the world. like having great stories where people are doing great things is super great to watch look it's really cool because we're educating both investors but then like i mean literally so many people are just excited about this stuff right now because they've never seen it before and like i don't know there's just been more and more media that's picked up and then coming from like the new media angle doing it all on x and then sharing it on instagram and youtube it's just it's been super fun Okay, so we were just looking at all the big huge machines.

14:06Sir Peter Beck:Yep, additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing. Now we're walking up on something that is also very large that will probably go into space. Yes, well so before we go over and have a look at the Archimedes engines, no tour would be complete without like an electron rocket so I figure you have to at least have a look at that. I was really curious about this because you guys have really great maiming systems. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're all very different and unique, so how did you come up with the Hungry Hippo? Well, just look like a Hungry Hippo. Did you play that game as a kid? No. When are you going to develop your own game?

14:43Sir Peter Beck:Oh, I'm not having time for that. It's barely time to develop a rocket, let alone a game. We could outsource that. Yeah, we could. Yep, yep. Well, we like to have fun with the mission names as well because it's such a serious business. So all of our rockets, you know, all the mission names are always called something a little bit funny just to lighten it up a little bit. Yeah. So for people who have never seen this before, could you walk through the entire... So this is an Electron. This is, you know, the rocket that we fly the most of right now. So it's flown 93 times. It's the second most frequently launched rocket in the world behind the Falcon 9.

15:22Sir Peter Beck:The bit up the front is the fairing, that's where the payload goes. Then this little bit behind that is the kick stage. This is the second stage of the vehicle. And then this down here is the first stage of the vehicle. So it's, you know, in traditional Rocket Lab fashion, it's all carbon composite. You know, the whole rocket is incredibly light. You know, we're very good at those very super lightweight structures. this is the hot bit so this is where all the engines are down the end so these are the the Rutherford rocket engine they're all they're all gimbled themselves and and like we build everything in this vehicle every piece of hardware every piece of software tanks engines you name it we build and I think that's that's one of the key successes of the company is just that vertical integration yeah and now you're expanding outward and building out space systems and Yep, and we do the same with that.

16:20Sir Peter Beck:Like if you pull apart a satellite that we've built, but the flight computer will be ours, the reaction wheels will be ours, all the solar panels will be ours. So it's the same philosophy, yeah. What else are you gonna start to add on? You just acquired Iridium. We have much left, yeah. There's a lot to go. You have a lot to do. Well, yeah, so components level, we'll head down here. Oh, okay. Yeah, so Iridium is just the start of our applications layer. So, you know, all the cool kids have got a comm layer. So we need to have one of those too. But no, seriously, Iridium is incredibly strategic for us to enter into that applications layer.

16:57Sir Peter Beck:And I've always believed the big space companies of the future are going to all look a little bit the same. They're going to have their own rocket because access to space is key. They're going to have their own ability to build as many satellites as they need. And they're all going to have applications. What about tourism? Are you going to do that? I don't think I'd be a very good tour operator, if I'm honest, but a better engineer than tour operator. When you see that, you're a very serious engineer. They're serious engineers as well, but how do you take on to the tourism bit of it? How serious is that?

17:32Sir Peter Beck:Well, look, I think there will be commercial space stations and there will be tourists go to them and all the rest of it. um i guess um you know for me personally i'm just not sure that's that's that exciting for me um and for the company i think it's always a tricky business and um you know unfortunately i'm the ceo so if anything ever goes bad guess who's knocking on the door so i don't know if i want to have to have that kind of you know level of responsibility well we're here we can sort of talk a little bit about so okay what you've been walking up is the archimedes production line so this line right now can produce one engine every eight days um and uh and there's a couple of elements here this is the the thrust chamber of the archimedes and um this here is the turbo pump so there are all the raw propellants come in here this is you know plus or minus 15 000 horsepower um if you're a metro if you're sort of old school horsepower guy and um uh you know these these two things together sort of really make up the archimedes engine and you're using methane for this one methane oxygen yep more metalox yep and what what you're using kerosene for the for the for the rather fit as a kerosene vehicle yeah why the difference in the usability okay so the trouble with kerosene is that um you you get these little um slip deposits in the regen channels of the engine and um you know you have to purge the engine out and it's sort of dirty and this thing uh you know the design requirement for the vehicle was turn in 24 hours which was a you know absurd design requirement but it drove a whole lot of really good decisions um one of them being methane because you can run an engine um and after the engine's run like it's still shiny stainless steel and stuff it's like there's just no residue whatsoever you do the same with a kerosene engine there's just certain black crap everywhere so it's just not fun yeah so every decision around the whole vehicle is designed around reusability and and quick turn cadence What has been the biggest challenge?

19:29Because I could imagine doing this, you're going to constantly meet new challenges along the way. What has been the biggest challenge upon that, making it reusable?

19:42Sir Peter Beck:Well, I think the reusability in itself is a challenge because if our job was just to make an expendable launch vehicle, we'd be there now. We'd be launching neutrons flat out. But what we're trying to do here is make a step change increment on the current state of the art. So we can't just come to market with a vehicle that's as good as the current one on the market. We have to come to it with a vehicle that's way better. So I think designing a vehicle that literally comes off the barge and goes straight on the pad and launches again is what we're trying to achieve here. So that drives a whole bunch of engineering compromise, a whole bunch of engineering decisions.