All language subtitles for Wild.Wild.Space.WEBRip

I do need to warn you
of something.

I actually don't have
a valid driver's license,

and the car is not registered,

and they canceled
my insurance,

so this is a little risky.

Most people are confused
when you do illegal things,

so they just kind of sit there,
and they don't move.

But we have
this green arrow...

Followed by this green arrow...

followed by this green light.

One of the reasons
why we're in a car right now

and not having a glass of wine

with a whole bunch
of fun people

is because I am trying to hire

one of the cofounders
of SpaceX

and create a company
that will succeed

beyond the wildest dreams
of the other companies

that they used to work for.

If we get good at this,

we'll change the way
people think about space.

Five, four, three,

two, one.

We have liftoff.

Yeah!

Fuck, yeah.

Caution on 5.

Shit.

You've heard about
the billionaire space race.

This isn't that movie.

What a lot of people
don't realize

is that we're in the midst
of a revolution in space.

It's like the Wild West.

It's a quest for power,
a celestial land grab

that's taking place
in the sliver of space

just over our heads
called low Earth orbit.

This is a film
about powerful satellites

and the rockets
that carry them into orbit.

And in short order,
the fabric of the modern world

will be controlled
by a select few.

This isn't your usual
cast of characters.

We have a slick
Silicon Valley entrepreneur,

a genius engineer,

and a space hippie
trying to save the world.

No one knows
if any of this will work

or where any of this is going.

But there is a lot of money
to be made up there.

Nothing's riding on this,

except things like
our right to privacy

and the power of the world
falling into the wrong hands.

And whoever controls space

may very well control
the future of humanity.

My name is Chris Kemp.

I am the cofounder and CEO
of Astra Space,

and most people
don't know that

because we're very quiet
about what we're doing.

So I run
a secret rocket company.

Astra's mission statement
is simply daily launch.

What we're trying to do
is very quietly build NASA

at 1/1,000,000 the budget,
in 1/100 time,

here in Silicon Valley.

The city actually came by,
and they said,

"You can't put up
a razor-wire fence."

- Really?
- Yeah. And--

- So we doubled down?
- I totally doubled down.

I put, like,
razor wire everywhere.

And they're like,
"You can't do this."

I'm like, "North Korea."
They're like, "What?"

And I'm like, "North Korea."

Chris is this living
embodiment of Silicon Val--

he's Silicon Valley brought
to life in a human form.

How are you?

He is very driven.

You're the founders
and the CEOs of businesses

that are leading
the revolution.

Fantastic.

Yes, he wants to get
a rocket to space.

But he wants to be seen
as a success,

and he wants the world
to see him as a success

and will stop at almost nothing
to make that happen.

I've been a longtime
technology journalist.

Worked at
"The New York Times,"

"The Economist."

Stumbled into space
just by reporting on SpaceX.

At the time, people thought
Elon was just some crazy kid

who'd sold his tech company
for millions of dollars

so he could go build a rocket.

How much did you know
about the space business

- before you got into it?
- Not very much.

Pretty much everyone thought
SpaceX was a total joke.

Three, two, one.

And liftoff.

An American company blasts
off into the history books.

SpaceX has launched
the first privately funded

rocket into space.

For Elon, it was like,

"Let's turn space
into a business.

"I'm going to build hundreds
and hundreds of rockets

"and thousands and thousands
of satellites

and make this
into a real industry."

So I end up writing
the first biography on Elon.

- How'd he like the book?
- How did he like the book?

He said he was gonna,
like, destroy my life.

But we talk now.

Right after I finished
the book, I'm looking around.

I realize
there's a lot of people

that want to be like Elon Musk
all of a sudden.

This kicks off
this worldwide revolution

in space.

This was capitalist investors,
welders from Texas,

military people, like,
dudes with mohawks,

not whatever most people's
image of space was.

The era of governments
controlling this stuff is over.

Companies control this.

Governments, regulators
are not equipped

to deal with the speed
at which things are going.

There's not a lot
of regulation,

not a lot of laws,
not a lot of, you know,

governance that exists there.

And I think that's
the opportunity right now,

because if you can
get there first,

you can have
a seat at the table

at defining the laws
that will govern space.

Whoever gets
the rocket there first,

whoever fills the sky
with satellites first wins.

It's a race.

There's
a big question about,

how many small rocket providers
can be profitable?

The most prominent one,
of course,

is New Zealand's Rocket Lab,
led by Peter Beck.

These are some engines
that have just come

off the 3D printer.

Yeah, it's pretty cool, eh?

This is an electron launch
vehicle.

This is obviously the hot end.

These are all
the Rutherford engines.

All gimbal around.

But you should get your camera
here to, like, see the--

Even though you're in the guts
of the rocket here,

I think it's important
to point this out.

As you'll see, these cable ties

are all equally spaced,
you know?

All of the nibs
are pointing up.

The margin for error here
is zero.

We often get accused
of building Ferraris.

But...

you know...

if it falls out of the sky,
at least it's beautiful.

We are doing something that
is historic for New Zealand.

All right,
everybody get down.

Three, two, one.

Off top!

That's what you call
a hard start, everybody.

I battled with,
for many, many years,

the stigma of, like,
a crazy guy

building rockets
in New Zealand.

You know, I started
Rocket Lab in 2006.

To be brutally honest
with you, if you asked me

who Elon Musk was,
I wouldn't have had a clue.

You could not have
a more unlikely background

for somebody starting
a rocket company...

a kid who grew up,

the southernmost point
of New Zealand.

The next stop is Antarctica.

There's really
hardly anything there.

In the world
of commercial space,

you're supposed to have
a aerospace degree

and some sort of pedigree,
or you have to be really rich.

Peter was
neither of these things.

You haven't studied
at university in any way?

No. No, no.

And what would be one
of the best pieces of advice

that you could give
to other entrepreneurs

that really want to push
their idea out?

Don't talk about it.
Just do it.

Just get off your ass
and do it.

Need to get that
into a fridge quick.

Can someone open the door?

He's, like, this possessed
mad scientist.

And the rest of them?

Quick, quick, quick.
Quick, quick, quick, quick.

I started building
a rocket engine.

I test-fired it
a couple of times.

But to really evaluate,
you know, how good it was,

I felt like
I needed to ride it.

So I started building a bike

around the rocket engine.

I've never felt
anything as good

as a rocket-powered vehicle.

I've been supersonic
in a fighter jet.

That was good. Wasn't as good
as the rocket bike.

I built the rocket pack.

And I was thinking,
let's get some rollerblades

to try this thing on.

In order to play in this game,
there's a lot of risk.

So, if you don't like risk,
you're not gonna like this.

"Falcon 9's"
an incredible machine,

but it's a big rocket
designed to take big payloads.

Companies like
Rocket Lab and Astra

are committed
to making small rockets

that can take small satellites
for less money

and then undercut SpaceX
on price.

What do you think
of Rocket Lab?

What do I think
of Rocket Lab?

Rocket Lab is a company
that has approached this

in a very traditional way.

The rocket in itself is a very
high-performance machine.

But it's expensive to build.

We're more like a Ford,
a much more low-cost,

mass-produced,
high-volume product.

I absolutely love
how light this thing is.

If Peter's not right,
Peter loses.

If I'm not right,
then I adapt.

I'm not built to build shit.

If someone wants
to build a rocket

that throws things into orbit,

that's super rough,
super inaccurate,

and that's
what the market needs,

let them win.

But I'm not built
to build shit.

There has to be something
fundamentally different

about how we approach
the problem.

If we're gonna catch up
and then pass Rocket Lab

and then build something

which is ultimately
competitive with SpaceX...

Sweet!

We have to be a lot better
than everyone else.

At the end of the day,
it's about how many satellites

we can deliver into space.

Most people don't appreciate
how much of their lives

has space technology
underlying it.

The fabric of our civilization

runs on satellites...

from package-delivery
tracking,

GPS,
tomorrow's weather forecast,

internet delivery.

Elon Musk's Starlink
wants to send

more than 40,000 satellites

into space
in the coming years.

In the previous world
that existed for decades,

we'd managed to put up
2,500 satellites.

From 2020 to 2023,

that number went
to about 8,000.

Thousands of connected satellites

that can do
revolutionary things

like bring broadband services
to millions, track refugees,

and fight climate change,
while spotting storms

before they get
to catastrophic levels.

This is not gonna stop.
We are going to 100,000.

In about 10 years,
a lot of people can make

a good argument
we'll go to 200,000.

This is moving so much faster

than what had existed
for the 60 years before.

The world is not
fully prepared for it.

He believes
that we can do better

and go faster
by getting smaller,

and thus introduced
flocks of tiny Doves

which today
have revolutionized

the entire
Earth observation industry.

Will Marshall,
cofounder and CEO of Planet,

needs no introduction.

The space renaissance
is not about escaping

off to Mars with billionaire
space tourists.

This space renaissance
is really about

how we can advance our ability
to take care of the Earth.

People have been talking
about the potential

of small satellites
for decades.

Planet was the first company

to show that that could
really be done.

From these pictures
from space,

we don't see borders.

We're giving humanity a mirror
to look back at itself.

When I look at companies
like Planet,

these are mechanisms

to implement the future
that we're trying to build.

We're all kind of
in this together

to do something
really, really significant.

Will and I met in college,

and he was breezing his way
through his master's

in space science
and technology.

And it was pretty clear
he was a genius

and super fun
to hang out with.

I remember one
of the first things we did was,

we jumped in my convertible.

He was driving around
in his BMW Z3.

Dropped out of university,
as all the cool kids do,

started a company.

He was already a millionaire,
and he was 21 years old.

And I was like,
who is this kid?

And we became friends.

I'm just gonna say it.

You guys seem like
an odd couple.

I think--yes, we're odd.
Yes, definitely.

I'm a scientist,
and he's a capitalist.

And, in fact, he often says now

he's converted me
to be a capitalist.

I'm like, no, no, no.

At what point did you
discover the idea of money?

Pretty early on.

- You're not looking--
- Hey, Christopher.

How's it going, dude?

All right, man.

I'm, like, in Beverly Hills
right now.

All these people
are here to see me.

My dad was a professor,
and my mom was a teacher.

And they were
extremely frugal.

It's king of the mountain!

I don't really know
anyone like me.

I love "Star Trek."

Because I have had little
experience with emotion,

I am unable to articulate
the sensation.

I would really connect with,
like, the Data character.

There was a period
where I told kids at school

that I was an android

because that was
just so much easier.

I kind of created
my own little--

my own little world
in my mind.

I ended up realizing

that if you could take
something apart and fix it,

you could sell it for more
than what you paid for it.

And so that became
quite a hustle for me.

So I made a ton of money
just buying computers,

fixing them, selling them.

And that funded my lifestyle...

as a nerd.

We were having
our New Year's party.

This was kind of
a young bunch of nerds.

I remember a bunch
of NASA stickers

being plastered on people.

And then this guy comes in

who's clearly
three times our age.

And he just totally
didn't fit in, you know?

He's holding a martini glass,
just cackling away at how,

when he was running
the Star Wars program,

he would have the Darth Vader
theme song play

as people came
into his office.

And it's just,
"Who is this guy?"

It turns out that Will
and Robbie had met him

a few years earlier
at this World Space Conference

in Houston.

There was this closed,
invite-only session,

and it was about military
and space.

So we stood outside

and handed out
these little flyers.

"Peace in space.
No space weapons."

Later on that evening,
we were in a bar,

and we get introduced
to Pete Worden.

- All right.
- Hop in the hot seat.

- Hop in the hot seat.
- That's you, sir.

- I'm Pete.
- It's a pleasure.

Good to meet you.

So many great stories
about you.

Great. Some of them
are partially true.

Pete Worden,
the tech lead for SDI,

which was the
Strategic Defense Initiative.

People usually know it
as Star Wars.

Spanning into space,
a layered defense

to protect the country
from nuclear devastation.

It was, like, Reagan's--
"We're gonna surround

"the world
with a missile defense shield

of space-based lasers."

A friend of mine and
I decided to have a drink.

There was a bunch
of young people

sitting in the corner
bemoaning the fact

that there was space weapons.

I said, "Who are the assholes?

"Do you think they know
that Darth Vader

is sitting right over here?"

And then we had
a massive argument in a pub.

A friendly argument,
mostly friendly.

We were like, "Look, you
can't put weapons in space.

It's ethically
a monstrous idea."

And he was like,
"We've got to do this

"to protect American security.

You don't understand
what you're talking about."

He wrote an email to me
the next day saying,

"Hey, I really enjoyed
our conversation last night.

"Why don't we write
a paper together?

"You write the cons,
and I'll write

"the pros of space weapons.

And we'll hash it out."

And we were like,
who is this guy?

I mean, he's a general
in the U.S. Air Force

in charge of, like,
a billion-dollar-a-year

space weapon program,
and we're students.

So we were like, well,
might as well give it a shot.

Sure. Why not?

I mean, basically,
we've met our mortal enemy.

May as well try
and persuade him

not to do what he's doing.

Pete Worden
is not just someone

with a passing interest
in space.

He's got a PhD
in astrophysics.

He's writing papers
about the nature of stars.

Well, I grew up
during the Apollo program.

It was really cool.

I wanted to be an astronaut.

I was a finalist once
but didn't get selected.

So I'm a little jealous
of astronauts.

Getting off the planet,

expanding into the solar system

and beyond is a driving force.

It's my religion.

You love this shit.

I do love this shit.

I'm a futurist, always have
been and always will be.

I guess that's--

July 20, 1969--

it is said
that 500 million people

gathered in TV sets
around the world

to wait
for the first earthling

to set foot on the moon.

The kind of exploratory
ventures we're talking about

seem to me to be
precisely the kind

that are needed
to re-establish

a cosmic context for mankind.

You know, in the '60s,

NASA was
incredibly innovative,

launching new missions to
the moon every couple months,

trying new things.

The brand was synonymous

with exploring
the solar system,

and there was magic in that.

It's the next frontier.

And liftoff of "Atlantis"
and the "Galileo" spacecraft,

bound for Jupiter.

NASA was
incredibly exciting.

Rock and roll, "Atlantis."

I had a little space shuttle
model that sat on my monitor

for years and years and years.

And I would look at that
space shuttle and go,

"I'm gonna work there one day.
I'm gonna work there one day."

I went to the United States
for a month.

I went on a bit of a rocket
pilgrimage, really,

and went and visited
all these companies

that I'd aspired to work for.

You know, I was pitching them
hard for a job.

As a foreign national,
no university education,

no aerospace background,
asking for a job

wasn't gonna go well.

My expectation of NASA

was NASA from the Apollo era.

The NASA that I had seen
in the movies and had imagined

was very, very different
to the NASA that--

that was actually there.

I'm thinking, "Man,
what the hell happened here?"

It was
terribly bureaucratic.

It's very difficult to start
innovative, new things

because there's a lot
of government inertia.

It became a self-licking
ice cream cone.

It only kept going because
it paid a lot of people

and it had a lot
of political support.

The average age was 52,
and everybody was talking

about the things
we used to do,

rather than the things
that needed to be done.

Flight attendants, prepare
for gate departure, please.

I had a plan in my head
for years.

I was gonna come
to the United States,

do my rocket pilgrimage,
crawl over some rocks.

It was gonna suck,
but I would find a way.

And then the probable went

to absolutely
and categorically improbable.

There's nothing like 12 hours
of just, like,

solid thinking time
to reevaluate your life.

I just remember sitting
in the chair thinking,

this is not good.

This is not how
it's supposed to be.

The only logical solution
was just, like, fuck it.

Let's start a company.

Bring that around.

It's Peter, a couple dudes
who he knows.

"Can we make a small rocket
and try to get it to space?"

And so they work on this
for, really, a couple years.

Everything is borrowed,
or some generous person

happens to give them
a chunk of metal

or something like that.

This is the very, very humble
beginnings of Rocket Lab.

I was driving to work,
and I heard on the radio

that this guy had
renamed himself Mark Rocket.

You could not write this.

He hears about a guy
actually named Mark Rocket who's rich.

He happened to be looking
for a way to invest in space.

And this guy,
Peter Beck, comes along.

He's actually built a rocket,
and says, you know,

"Do you want to start
a company together?"

And Peter gives away
half his company

for a couple
hundred thousand dollars

just to get this going.

You'd be crucified
for doing something like that

in Silicon Valley.

But Peter sort of
doesn't know any better,

and he's also desperate.

And this is, like,
manna from heaven

with this guy
named Mark Rocket

who's rich and wants to pay
for his thing.

Prior to that,
all the rockets I'd built

I'd strapped to things
that I had ridden.

So this was the first rocket
that I hadn't actually ridden

nor had any desire to.

You know, we'd done
lots of engine testing,

and stage-separation testing,
and parachute-drop testing.

We had no more money.
We had no more anything.

Everything was on the line.

That rocket needed to go,
and it needed to go well.

In the tradition
of great New Zealand explorers,

New Zealand,
we are a go for space.

Arm igniter.

Arm oxygen.

Coupler disconnect.

Coming through.
No smoke.

Ten, nine, eight--oxygen.

Seven, six, five, four,

three, two, one.

You fucking did it!

Yes!

She's still burning!

She's gone!

22 seconds,
we're home free to space!

NASA Ames is this
Silicon Valley NASA center.

It's gone through all these
ups and downs.

In the 2000s, it's
in a really fallow period

where the government

is thinking
about shutting it down.

At the time, Pete Worden
was the head of this

Office of Strategic Influence
at the Pentagon,

and he'd just been fired
by the Secretary of Defense,

Donald Rumsfeld.

Well, I'd just been
fired from my job

because I was a bit
of a hot potato.

Pete said, and I quote,
"Donald Rumsfeld fucked me.

"But they're gonna give me
a NASA center

to make up for it."

And they say, "Pete,
you're, like, our last hope.

"We're gonna give you
this NASA center.

"See if you can do
something interesting,

and maybe
we'll keep it around."

Hi, I'm Pete Worden,
the director

of the NASA Ames
Research Center.

Pete starts to have
these thoughts of, like,

how can we innovate in space?

How can we do
different things?

When I came to Ames,
I brought a hat trick

of young people with me.

He called Robbie and me up,
and he said,

"I've got this new job.

Do you want
to come work with me?"

And we were like hemming and hawing.

On the one hand, we didn't
want to work for our enemy.

On the other hand,
we were like,

he's going to work at NASA.

And he basically said,
"Hey, you can do

whatever space missions
you want."

And we were like, what?

Who gets to do, you know,
missions like that

when we were kids, you know,
mid-20s at this point.

He had this vision
for pulling all this together.

And he said,
"Well, what are you doing?"

I said, "Well, I'm running
this travel software startup."

And he goes, "Well,
that's bullshit," you know?

"Why do travel when you can
come do space travel with me?"

He would surround himself
with people

that had different contexts,

that had
a different worldview.

"But let's let
1,000 flowers bloom here

"somehow in the space sector.

I'll create the environment."

These are, like,
the best of the best.

PhDs in all different areas
of physics, computer science.

It really started
a revolution,

or I might call it
a counterrevolution.

Pete had hired us to be
a "special studies team,"

which was sort of
an ambiguous,

murky umbrella term

for, "Go and do things
that you think will cause

"just enough trouble
to be interesting

and not enough trouble
to get me fired, mostly."

Chris Kemp gets brought in
because he's a nerd

who had done
some successful dot-coms.

Chris was a real expert
in software,

so I ended up making him
my chief information officer.

Chris didn't even have
a degree,

but I managed
to force that through.

I actually printed
my own business cards.

I took the coolest
NASA business card

that I'd ever been handed,
and then I made up a title.

And I think I called myself

the Director of Strategic
Business Development.

Invented the role,
printed a business card,

and just did that.

Pete is, like, inheriting
NASA Ames at the same time

that SpaceX is trying to build
their first rocket.

These dot-com-ers
are building rockets.

You welcome that?

Their success
is going to enable us

to settle the solar system

and do all these other
wonderful things in space

because it's gonna
lower the cost.

And it really creates
this joint momentum

at the right time,
where you've got people

outside of NASA
trying some new ideas,

and now you've got this, like,
rebel alliance inside of NASA.

One of the things
we tried to do was,

can we find cheap ways
to get to the moon?

So we ended up setting up
a kind of quiet lunar program.

We were trying to make
a modular spacecraft

that could be used
for various missions.

And we basically crash-landed

into the south pole
of the moon.

We found loads of water.

We're gonna build
a lunar lander,

and we're gonna show NASA
that space can be different.

Everything does not have to be
$1 billion, $2 billion.

He really helped bring
NASA Ames

into the modern space era.

A lot of the positive change
that's happened

can be traced back
to Pete's work.

He is legend
in NASA circles, you know?

We call him a rebel.

He did things that--

he broke the mold.

And the young people
liked that,

and they followed him.

One of the crazier things
he did was,

he allowed our whole team

to organize
a space party there.

It wasn't just a space party.

It's a rave with 8,000 people.

So Yuri's Night is
World Space Party.

It celebrates Yuri Gagarin's
first spaceflight.

And the idea is to make space
not, like, a national thing

but an international thing.

I said, well, you know
we're a NASA center.

We can do a really cool party.

He's like,
"Jessy, go for it.

Like, you have my blessing."

I love that picture.

It's me and Pete
at NASA celebrating

a Russian cosmonaut's
first orbit around the Earth,

beating America to the punch.

For those of you
that know me,

I used to be
a U.S. Brigadier General.

I think this is a Soviet
two-star general's outfit,

so I took a promotion.

So we had these raves,
and they were really cool.

Yes, there was probably quite
a bit of marijuana smoking.

And I got in a little trouble

because I told
the security people that--

they said,
"Well, what do we do

with those people
smoking dope?"

And I said,
"Just don't go over there."

One of Pete's
Air Force colleagues

kept on putting up his phone,

saying, "This phone has most
of what a spacecraft has."

This is just when
smartphones were coming out.

Suddenly, there was GPS,
cameras, faster computers.

If you look at the list
of a smartphone

and the list of things
in a spacecraft,

90% the same thing.

And we were like, OK.

Why don't we just fly
a few of these suckers?

We fit one of these phones
into a little cube,

did all these tests on it.

I'm not really sure
whether the phone survived.

- Oh, no.
- Hey!

Part of it was just
to make the satellite

not be this, like,
precious object.

It's just a phone.

Whoo!

I was hauled
into Pete's office.

"What are you doing?"

And we were like,
"What are you talking about?"

And he's like, "You're
launching phones into space.

You didn't tell me."

So we almost got fired.

Then we were like,
"No, no, no, no, chill out.

"It's gonna be great.

"These phones are gonna show
that we can do spacecraft

for much, much lower cost."

So right now
we've got the data.

Wow.
both: Oh!

- Whoo-hoo!
- Whoa!

So I thought
this was pretty cool.

And I said, OK, let's see
if we can't put this in space.

We found a cheap way
to have them

thrown out
of the Space Station.

We stitched together
a whole picture of the Earth

that we had taken
on this phone

that was just floating around
in space.

It was pretty poor resolution.

But the spacecraft had cost
a few thousand dollars,

not a few million
or a few billion.

President Obama showed up.

And I said, "I'd really like

to show this guy
what we're doing."

I said, "Mr. President,
welcome to NASA Ames.

We just launched the world's
cheapest satellites."

And he stopped.

He said,
"How cheap were they?"

And I said, "Well,
two of them were $4,000,

and one was $10,000."

Without missing a beat,
he looks at me and says,

"We're giving you guys
too much money."

We left NASA in earnest
in mid-2011 to start Planet.

We really said, fuck it.

Let's build something
in a different way.

Within 12 months,
we built our first

fully integrated satellite.

This is one of the earliest
spacecraft we ever made.

Yep. This is a CubeSat.

All that it is, is just a--

it's a really nice camera.

So this antenna,
which you can actually see

is made of a tape measure--

NASA would spend
millions and millions

on a typical antenna
for a spacecraft.

We cut up a tape measure
that probably cost us $2.50

from a hardware store.

When we were
thinking through

why we were doing this,

what benefit
would come from it,

the primary use case
that we wanted to do

was to stop deforestation.

We designed these satellites

so that they could just about
see an individual tree.

It was, like, 2:00 or 3:00
in the morning.

We got
our very first picture back.

Robbie actually just came
and blasted into my room

and jumped on top of me
with this picture.

This is
the very first picture

that ever came down from space

that we took with our team
at Planet.

You can do
all the calculations,

and then you're never sure

it's actually gonna work, right?

And it did,
and everything worked.

I mean, we were over the moon.

We realized, with lots
of little spacecraft,

we could do
more rapid observation

of the entire Earth.

The Earth is
constantly changing.

It's changing
on days timescales

with human activity.

And the satellite imagery
we have of it today

is typically years old.

Satellites like these
have done an amazing job

at helping us
to understand our planet.

But if we want to understand
it much more regularly...

we need lots of satellites.

What we'd ideally want
is images

of the whole planet every day.

We're gonna launch

more than a hundred
of these satellites.

It's gonna be the largest
constellation of satellites

in human history.

T-minus 30 seconds.
On my mark.

We've got 26 satellites
on this rocket.

It's a big deal.

It's the largest number
of satellites we've ever put

on a rocket, in fact,
the largest number

of satellites that anyone has
ever put on a rocket.

And we have liftoff.

It goes up.
Everything's looking good.

And then I can
quickly see here--

I was like, oh, shit.

Oh, crap.

Oh, God.

Oh, God!

Oh. And that's the end.

- Wow.
- What was that?

And that looks like
an explosion of that rocket.

That looked
like something really--

That looked like
something went definitely

very wrong with that launch.

Whoa!
Jesus!

Planet lost
all their satellites.

Will and Robbie saw

there's all these
rocket startups

appearing around the world.

Chris was at Ames,
and then he left to go start

this company called Nebula.

The company did not do great,
and so Chris was out of work.

Planet brought him on
as a consultant

to go scour the world,

find the best rockets
to fly on.

I spent six months
traveling around the world,

meeting all
the rocket companies.

I was not impressed.

Chris came down
under the guises

of an independent
satellite consultant.

Peter Beck wanted
to fly Planet's satellites,

so he gave him
the top-end tour.

Peter really went
out of his way

to tell Chris everything.

I suggested to Planet
that they give Rocket Lab

a contract, and they did.

But I also saw how expensive
that rocket would be.

I just saw an opportunity
to do something different here.

They like to talk about
the kind of massive amounts

of power and massive
amounts of propellant

and the massive scale and--

Chris came back
to the United States.

A couple of months passed,
and then, suddenly,

Chris had a rocket company.

Naturally,
we were quite surprised

a few months later
when Astra popped up.

His idea was basically

to undercut Rocket Lab
on price.

How cheap and crappy
can we make a rocket?

I'm somebody who wants
to actually succeed

from a business perspective,
versus just make big toys.

I met Adam in a garage.

I was blown away.

You know,
he's the rocket scientist.

He's one of the most brilliant
people you'll ever meet.

I showed him around,
talked about stuff, et cetera.

And he was, I think,
you know, pretty excited.

A rocket a day was

in the very first
pitch presentation

that Chris and I did.

They wanted to make a rocket
faster than anyone

had ever made a rocket
in history.

They wanted it to be
the cheapest rocket

that had ever been made.

And they wanted to make
an actual factory

that could pump
these rockets out every day,

just like you'd make a car
or something like that.

This had never been done
in the industry.

- There we go.
- Be careful.

There's broken glass
everywhere.

I think people came in here
and played war.

It's a perfect, like, set
for a zombie-apocalypse movie.

If we're gonna make
a rocket a day

really, really affordably,
we've got to have

really inexpensive facilities.

The challenge is,
we deal with all this stuff.

This is actually--
it's all lead paint.

And people take this shit
really seriously, right?

But we've got to deal
with this stuff

and cover it and repaint it

and clean the building up
a little bit,

or people get stressed.

Credit where credit's due.

Chris is
an amazing salesperson.

In this industry,
it takes a bit of that.

It's a better view
over here.

You know, he's able to be
very successful

at raising capital.

- This is lead paint.
- OK.

Oh.

We've got a lot of work to do

to catch up with Rocket Lab.

It's a race right now,
and we're trying to catch up.

- What do you think?
- I love it.

It kind of brings
postapocalyptic chic

and spacesuit together
in kind of a alien way,

but an optimistic alien way,
in black.

2017,
rocket's far enough along.

Chris decides to have
a party to show everybody

the rocket for the first time.

All right, welcome
to Dawn of Space, everyone.

There's lots of people

that have raised
tremendous amounts of money

on the back
of fantasifull promises.

The great thing
about this industry

is that you can make
all the promises in the world.

But at some point,
you actually have to deliver.

Thank you all for coming.

And the next time we have
a party, we will be in space.

People had started
hearing rumors

that this guy in New Zealand
is doing interesting things.

When Peter ends up
going to Silicon Valley,

all these investors call around
to find out who knows what.

Pete Worden,
he'd caught wind of Peter.

I mean, he's maybe one of the
best engineers I've ever met.

This guy is the real deal.

As he's trying
to raise money,

this vote of confidence from
Pete Worden has a huge effect.

The first money hit the bank
January 2014.

And we had a rocket
on the pad in 2017.

2017, Rocket Lab tries
to launch for the first time.

It's called, like, "a test."

It's not taking
a commercial payload.

The most important thing was
it just get clear of the pad.

That's kind of
your worst nightmare--

Something coming up
off the pad,

then coming back down
on the pad.

That is instant
company extermination.

We did not have the resources
to rebuild a pad.

When you're testing
your rocket in the early days,

you pretty much just want
to get it off the pad.

The goal is to get enough
flight time to pull some data.

And if you're lucky,

the rocket will happen to get
to space.

But, basically, nobody gets
into orbit on their first try.

It just--it doesn't happen.

It takes
100 times more energy

to put an object in orbit

versus just going
up into space.

It's not just up.

You see rockets
as they launch.

They go up and then over.

Well, the over part's
the hard part

because you've got to achieve
a velocity capable of shooting

the rocket around the planet.

And if you don't have
enough velocity,

it comes right back down.

When it actually came time
to launch,

it was a big, big day.

Everyone was confident
that it was gonna work.

But also, nobody knew what
the hell it was gonna do.

- Yes! Yes!
- Fuck, yes!

It was a nominal
clean liftoff.

Engine performance
was nominal.

Everything was nominal.

It had a nominal separation

and an ignition
of the second stage engine.

The rocket does
fantastically well.

It's made it to space,

and it's heading
towards orbit.

At that point,
you've achieved more than 99%

of most countries
on their first rocket.

We're literally,
like, 200 seconds away

from reaching orbit.

The folks that are in charge
of making sure

that the rocket flies safely

shut the engine down
by mistake.

The safety officer
actually blew up

Rocket Lab's first rocket.

We were literally
seconds away from orbit.

That would have been
the first time in history

that a new rocket had flown
successfully on its first try.

All right,
to other news now,

and a truly spectacular feat
for New Zealand.

We've joined the space race.

One small step
for Rocket Lab,

one giant leap
for New Zealand aerospace.

In 2017, in India,

Planet Labs launched 88
of their Dove satellites...

a record number of satellites

to put in space
by many, many times.

It's the largest
constellation

of Earth-imaging satellites
in human history,

and it's gonna provide
a completely radical

new dataset
about our changing planet.

And we have decided,
therefore, that the best thing

that we can do
with our data is to ensure

universal access to it.

We wanted to ensure
everyone can see it.

Thank you.

Planet was
the very first company ever

to be able to take photos
of every spot

on Earth every day.

And this is useful
for a lot of things.

You can gather
environmental data

around things
like deforestation,

land use, and drought,

and then
some very practical things

like helping a farmer decide
when to harvest their crops.

We can actually tell
the crop type.

Is this corn or wheat
or soy or whatever?

We can tell
how well it's doing,

where it needs to add water,

an early sign
of a health problem,

which can improve their
crop yields by 20% or 40%.

That can help feed
the planet more efficiently.

The things
that we're already learning

about the Earth from Planet's
satellites are amazing.

It was a massive breakthrough.

They've changed the entire
satellite industry forever.

So, in 15 months,
we incorporated a company.

We hired 75 engineers.

We built a development
facility, a test facility,

a manufacturing facility,
a mission control center,

designed and built a rocket,

and are about to fly it
next month.

So, from zero--
like, no company--

thank you.

- All right. Wait, hold on.
- NASA crew.

Madman on the loose

with ICBM
pointed at San Francisco.

We're taking the rocket
up to a small island

in the North Pacific,
and we're going to launch it.

And if we're able to do that,

that will be
pretty historic, I think.

In the United States,
most companies launch

from Florida or California.

They're all government-owned.

You have to fight
for attention and position

on these launch pads.

Astra's
this fledgling company.

Alaska is trying to attract
this commercial business,

and so they kind of roll out
the red carpet.

Give them their own space.
Give them their own pad.

It's just like, go fly it.

Get data.
Whatever went wrong, we fix.

We do this again.

But things were
just not working.

It's 60-miles-an-hour gusts
up here.

Barely staying alive.

Having trouble
locating the QDs.

Let's kill some helium!

This went on for weeks
and weeks and weeks.

Getting this guy
up off the pad

would be a pretty big win
for all of us.

If we do launch the rocket
and it is successful,

it strengthens
our position considerably.

I do hate to see Rocket Lab
get a third launch off

before we get our first.

Ground close OV 107.

Thanks for coming out.

- Hey, Scott.
- Good luck.

We're gonna try to put
something in space.

- Let's do it.
- Or blow it up trying.

This is Chris Kemp
at mission control

in Alameda, California.

If we're able to achieve
our objective

of getting the rocket
off the pad,

we'd like to fly
for as long as possible.

All right. Tango.
Watch P-O-T.

Call Abort if you see it
exceed 20 PSI.

Rocket companies get
these little windows of time

when the weather looks right.

The government's
approved your launch.

35, 34, 33,

32, 31, 30...

This is TC on countdown.
We are at a hold.

- Is that bad?
- No.

32, 31, 30...

Hold, hold, hold.

- It's the whiskey.
- It's hard shit.

- It's hard shit.
- Yeah. Thank you.

- It's hard shit.
- All right.

We've aborted.

This pattern repeated itself
over and over and over again.

That sucks.

You have to take
the whole thing down,

go try to find
this small, tiny problem,

fix it, do this
again and again.

This went on
for so many weeks.

For those of you
just tuning in,

we had several
launch attempts yesterday.

This is our last day
in our launch window.

We're gonna get it this time.

- Hey.
- It's gonna happen.

- Yay.
- All right.

- It's gonna happen.
- I think so, too.

- Counting down.
- Counting down.

all: Ten, nine,
eight, seven, six,

five, four, three,

two, one.

Go.

- Yeah.
- Yeah!

That was awesome.

Nice.

Wow.

It ends up
finally launching,

goes for about 27 seconds.

It definitely didn't
reach orbit.

It didn't reach space.

But they were able to get
some data from it.

Thank you again
for all your support.

It was a successful flight.

It's looking like we got

plus or minus 10 seconds
from our 30-second objective.

I can only imagine
going back in time

and tapping on the shoulder
and whispering

into that little boy's ear,

"One day, that Captain Kirk's

gonna open
your rocket factory."

What a wonderful place
to be.

In November of 2018,

they fly their first
commercial mission.

So this launch's got
seven payloads aboard

from a variety
of different customers.

It's called
"It's Business Time,"

in honor of
"Flight of the Conchords."

It's business time.

Now we had paying customers.

It is business time,
in all sense of the words.

There was a lot,
lot riding on that.

If you're declaring
to the world

that you have a product
that works,

it better bloody work.

I hate launches.

I really do not enjoy them.

These early launches,
like, if they go badly,

that's the end.

Flight mode.

Ten, nine, eight,

seven, six, five, four...

- Ignition.
- Three, two, one.

Altitude is 200 kilometers.

The best time of a launch
is a squiggly graph.

See a nice, straight line,

and then it'll give
a wee squiggle.

And that wee squiggle is
the reaction moment

of when you separate off
the payload.

That is the only good thing
about a launch.

Oh, very nice.

The Rocket Lab
Electron launch vehicle

reached a successful orbit
on only its second mission.

They've come out of the gate
looking really good.

Another perfect
bloody flight.

This one took a while
to get off the pad,

but instantaneous T0.

Perfect flight.
Nice, perfect, nominal orbit.

And I don't--fuck,
I don't know what to say.

But, yeah.

Let's do it again
in a few weeks.

Hi, everyone.

For those of you
just joining us,

this is the first
launch attempt

of our version 2.0 rocket.

I was just informed
of the range.

Rocket 2, you had a bunch
of ex-SpaceX people come in.

They start to play
this major role.

Chris Thompson,
one of the SpaceX,

like, early founding team,
he's the lead.

It's like, the adult
supervision has arrived.

Five, four, three,

two, one, zero.

No fire. Abort.

This is a better outcome
than having the rocket explode.

all:
Five, four,

three, two, one.

- Zero.
- Go!

- Why isn't it going?
- Do you see it?

It's going?

It's not going.

No fire. Abort.

- What's this?
- It's my mom.

Nice.

"Hope you find the problem
with the igniters."

We can't launch because
there's a boat in the way.

You have to put out
a notice--

clear out of the area

where debris might fall
from this thing.

There's inevitably
some ship captain

who just doesn't pay attention
to any of this.

They're not moving.

- And...
- Not answering the radios.

Have we sent
the helicopter out?

I want the name
of that captain.

I'm gonna fucking crucify him.

Well, there's the boat
right there.

What is he? Tell me.

We're gonna file a lawsuit
against that captain.

- You'll be hearing from me.
- We will find you.

I once sunk a person's ship
that pissed me off.

It's very easy to do.
You get a drill.

- It's...
- Yeah.

- It's gone.
- Yeah. So we'll use that.

Let's not get that--

- You're on video.
- Oh. Hi.

- You want to keep pushing...
- I'm not pushing.

- I'll call right now...
- I'm not pushing.

And say I'm done.
Let us do what we need to do.

That's all I'm trying
to do, Chris.

And I'm just trying to make
sure that your teams are

all on the same page
before I communicate

- anything externally.
- Right. But--

- OK. So we're good?
- Yeah.

Great.
That's all I needed. Thanks.

Hold, hold, hold.

Abort, abort hit.

Daddy, why did,
like, the--why did it,

like, shut down right away?

The computer
that controls the engine...

- Yeah?
- Has a problem inside of it.

- Oh.
- And so it won't work.

Because you said once,

if the launch thing
didn't work,

you have to put new engines on.

Basically, you're doing that,
only with the computer?

It is the last try

and the last hour
of the last day.

It's looking good.

Fuck.

Five, four, three,

two, one, zero.

Yeah!

Fuck, yeah.

Go, baby, go!

Hold, hold, hold.

Vehicle has experienced
an anomaly in flight.

Rocket 2 comes pretty much
straight down on the pad.

It's, like, the worst thing
that you can have happen.

What message
do you want to put?

Um, what is it?

- Just say--
- On the webcast page?

Just say,
"test concluded," you know?

Livecast has concluded.

Investors are texting.

Hey, no worries. Yeah.

Just wanted to give you guys
an update.

So we didn't quite
hit 60 seconds.

But it was
a really beautiful flight.

And we got about--we got
about 30 seconds of flight.

It was. Yeah.
The night launches are--

They're always spectacular, so...

Well, I'll pass that
along to the team.

And thank you so much
for all your support.

I've got to, like,
thread a needle...

- Yeah.
- With this stuff because--

- It's gonna be tough for you.
- There's total success.

And then there's
total failure.

- And this is--it's about--
- Yeah.

Well done.

This isn't total failure.
This isn't total success.

But it's about--
this is great, actually.

This is a great outcome.

- We launched.
- We launched. And we learned.

And--so this was a fantastic
outcome for the company.

And no one was hurt.

It didn't break anything.
The rocket flew.

- Got further.
- Got further.

So, I mean, period.

Like, full mic drop, this is
a great day for this company.

I'm, like, incredibly happy.

A private company
named Planet Labs has put

about 300 small satellites
into space,

enough to take a picture
of the entire land mass

of the Earth every day.

Making it available
to everybody,

people are gonna come up
with uses of that imagery

that you haven't imagined.

Dreamed of, yeah.

Now that there are
commercial companies

that have nothing to do
with governments

snapping pictures
day after day,

we're starting to call it
open source intelligence.

Commercial satellites
are changing

the way information
is consumed.

They are giving us data
that we did not have access to

20 years ago.

Governments and intelligence communities

have special equipment
to take photos.

Those photos are restricted
and classified.

You can never look at 'em.

In the run-up to the Iraq War,

the government disclosed
satellite images

and told the world,

here's evidence that Iraq has
weapons of mass destruction,

Because this fence
and this aluminum tube

kind of look like something
that had to do with weaponry.

And they're kind of trying
to do A plus B equals F.

This can't happen anymore.

Right now
if you gave me two images

and you were a government,
I would buy 60 images

over the same time frame,

and I would tell you
what was happening.

Everything in the world
has a visual signature.

And if you can interpret it--
and not a lot of people can--

it's like you know a language,

and you can translate
for other people.

I remember, in 2008,
I got a tip-off.

And they said,
"Hey, there's an underground

submarine base in China."

I didn't think that was true
because it sounds

a little James Bond-y
and stupid.

And he gave me
broad, general coordinates.

There you are.

There was a lot of evidence
kind of mounting

that this is actually being
hollowed out

so that you could fit in
a submarine.

These are huge piles of dirt.

And as boring as that sounds,
when you see

massive piles of dirt
in a military base,

you know that a lot
of construction is happening.

They put a little barge here.

They open up the sea cave.
They take the barge.

And they move it over
right here.

And the only time I've ever
seen it removed was here.

This image was taken

by a Planet satellite
in August of 2020.

And this is the only image
I've ever seen

where you're actually seeing
this Chinese nuclear submarine

entering that cave.

I had been looking
for this for--

For 12 years.

And, safety, can you confirm
that red team

is in a safe location
for UHF testing?

Copy that. Thank you.

We took about a year.

And we came back
with Rocket 3.

We had a series
of test flights that failed.

And they failed
in ever more spectacular ways.

Ooh. Ooh.

It's not good.
We hit the ground.

Like, we hit something.

Fuck.

This sucks.

That, I don't think,
was good.

Dolphin, confirm igniter
system is ready for launch.

It's 2020.

It's Rocket 3.2.

This thing has to work

if Astra wants to consider
itself a real rocket company.

Everything was on the line.

How's it looking, Lucas?

OK, tango, at this time,

I would like you
to enable the launch.

Ten, nine,

eight, seven, six,

five, four, three,

two, one, zero.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Let it go.

Release.

We have cleared the tower.

Here we go. Here we go.
Here we go. Here we go.

- Stage.
- Stage set.

Upper-stage ignition enabled.

Yeah! Yes! Yes!

- Yes!
- Fuck, yes, man.

- Fuck, yeah!
- Jesus Christ.

Holy shit.

Fuck, yeah.

Oh, man.

Thank you.

No way.
That's our rocket?

Yeah.

We're in space.
We're definitively in space.

Oh.

That's incredible.

We've got to figure out
next steps now

because we didn't expect
to pull this off

quite this quickly,
so we have to--

got to figure out
how to accelerate things now.

Oh, fuck, yes.

Did we make orbit?

We don't know yet.

- Hey, baby.
- Hey, baby.

We just are in orbit
temporarily.

We made it all the way.

Lots of videos, like the thing
with Earth in the background.

I love you, sweetie.

This makes life
so much easier for us.

Our valuation just doubled.

OK, 22 is the new number.

Man, 3 years
of trying to do this,

22 tries with this.

all: Cheers.

I'm really glad
we replaced that battery.

We have two pictures
of what looks like

we're in orbit,
and then silence, right?

So, like, what do we do
to follow that?

Because the silence is
deafening right now.

Yes, exactly. That's the point.

I also don't think it's deafening
in a bad way, right?

Yes. It's not deafening in a bad way.

It's in an incredibly positive way.

We need to say,
"Total mission success,"

exclamation, exclamation.

You shouldn't call it
a 'total mission success.'

Mission success.

I wouldn't even say "mission."

- Huge success.
- Huge success. Yeah.

Yeah, and that'll be vague.
I like that.

Astra, an aerospace company
sending satellites,

not people, into space is
debuting on the NASDAQ today,

listing at a $2 billion
valuation.

You know,
there's a trillion-dollar

space economy
that's developing.

And hundreds of companies
over the past few years

have been formed.

So, without further ado,
I am thrilled to declare

that space is now open
for business.

This is a space renaissance
going on.

We got new rockets,
hundreds of new satellites

going into space,

and a big, new economy.

It's like the birth
of the Internet

going on for space.

It's exciting times.

The space industry
has transformed

in the last decade.

And what drove that
was a massive influx

of venture capital.

Space is the place.

Space is hot.

Tons of money has
flooded into this,

hundreds of billions
of dollars

into all these
rocket companies,

hundreds of billions
into these satellite companies.

When there is this kind
of investment into space,

we do end up with innovations
that help people.

Is the venture-capital
community

in this for altruistic reasons?

That would not be my view.

The venture-capital community
is in this to make money.

Doves are flying
in outer space.

And if you're an investor,
the pictures they send back

could bring you a really
serious competitive advantage

and a profit.

When you have this daily
imagery of the Earth,

it's this huge window

into the economic activity
of our planet.

From West Texas oil fields

to Chinese power plants
in Xinjiang

and Argentine lithium mines.

One of the biggest things
that I did in the tech sector

was look at floating-lid
oil tanks.

They're huge oil-storage tanks

that as you remove oil
from it, the lid depresses.

You can take an image
over that every single day.

You can measure the shadow
of the interior of that.

And you can actually calculate
the volume of oil.

They do a report
every Wednesday,

how much oil they have.

But if you get the numbers
on Monday,

then you have
a financial advantage.

Hedge funds is one
of the most interesting areas

in finance because we actually
know the soy yield

of all the world's soy fields
before anyone else,

the crop yields,

the mining output from all
the world's copper mines,

and so on.

Now you have these very
successful satellite companies

that do have a lot of power
over the information

that describes our lives.

What the fuck is that?

More than half
the satellites in space

are owned and controlled
by one man.

Elon Musk
and his company Starlink

operate more than 4,500
of them.

So, if I type in Starlink,

these are all the satellites
that are operated by SpaceX.

They will launch them
20 at a time, 60 at a time.

That is a new thing
in the space industry

over the last few years.

SpaceX has moved so fast

that they have become
clearly dominant.

They are the world's
largest satellite maker

by many, many times.

There are challenges
with the satellite era

in terms of
the environmental impact

of humans industrializing
outer space.

In 2009,

an Iridium Communications
satellite

was happily orbiting
over the Arctic

when a dead Russian
communications satellite

from the '90s
headed the same way.

And they smashed
into each other.

Thousands of debris objects,

many of which are
still in orbit today.

This was the most serious
orbital collision to date.

We track all the satellites,
all the space debris.

It's sort of like
air traffic control for space.

So you see on this globe

everything that we've been
tracking over the last day,

so over 20,000 objects,

satellites, pieces of debris,

stuff down to, like,
a centimeter in size,

you know, about the size
of this screw.

And we basically keep tabs
on all of that

and then generate alerts
when important changes happen.

There are always close calls
with space debris.

I was a NASA astronaut
from 1995 until 2007.

I remember an instance

where we were told
by mission control

that we were gonna have
a close approach.

Never saw it, which goes
to show you how hard it is

to see something
going 20 times faster

than a speeding bullet.

We really do have to start
cleaning up

low Earth orbit.

In the decades to come,
if we do nothing,

we will start to see
more and more collisions

and more and more
satellites destroyed

due to these collisions.

It's the gateway if you want
to go anywhere else in space.

If you want to go to the moon,
if you want to go to Mars,

if you want to put up
a telescope

like the James Webb
to peer at other galaxies,

you've got to go in
and through low Earth orbit.

So, if it becomes a mess,

then we've actually
limited ourselves to Earth.

So, like,
in typical Astra fashion,

you've just reached
the edge of orbit.

You hope the next one
is a total success.

Instead of that,
a few months later, in 2021,

Astra has their infamous
sideways rocket.

The rocket lost one of five
engines almost immediately.

It pretty much went sideways.

It just goes out the fence
and then up.

We've got a stock
that's really losing

a lot of ground this morning,

and that is Astra Space.

It was their first
commercial mission.

- And it was not a success.
- No, it's not.

So that stock's down.
Look at that. Wow.

17%.

That thing's just
going sideways.

I know.

Again,
a couple steps forward,

several steps backwards.

Five, four...

In 2021, everything finally
happens in Astra's favor.

And Astra's LV0007 has
successfully reached orbit.

There is a new orbital rocket.

Take a look
at rocket upstart Astra Space.

Shares surging yesterday,

as much as 30% at one point,

after its small rocket
successfully reached orbit

on Saturday.

The milestone makes Astra

the fastest launch company
ever to reach orbit.

Seeing failure after failure
lead to success,

everyone is just incredibly

passionate about--

corks are flying.

Astra becoming
just the fourth U.S. company

to privately fund and develop

a rocket
that has reached orbit.

They're joining
a small group of companies--

SpaceX, Virgin Orbit,
and Rocket Lab.

What happens
in the space business

once you accomplish this is,

governments start
to award you contracts.

NASA had this mission
called TROPICS.

They were gonna borrow from
some of Planet Labs' ideas

and put up a lot of satellites
to measure the weather.

At NASA, we try to bring in
small launch companies

just so we can help create
that competitive environment.

It is in our best interest
that we get the best price.

This is the chance
where you show it wasn't luck.

It was like, we know
exactly what we're doing.

We can do this
again and again.

Good morning, everyone.

And welcome to today's
live launch coverage.

LV0010 marks
Astra's mission with NASA.

And it is the first
of three launches

to deliver the NASA TROPICS
satellites to low Earth orbit.

Five, four...

The teams at Alameda

watching on
as the flight progresses.

Again, the flight, going well
so far.

Can see it taking off
from below.

And there is stage separation.

Seven minutes in the flight,
just a little over

a minute left in the planned
upper-stage burn.

We have a premature
second-engine cutoff.

We had a nominal
first-stage flight.

However, the upper-stage engine
did shut down early.

And we did not deliver
our payloads to orbit.

We will end
the broadcast here.

And thank you
for sticking with us today.

An Astra rocket launch from
the Cape on Sunday failed.

The startup was unable
to put satellites into orbit.

It seems like it was
an engine-related issue

very, very late
in the second-stage burn.

They were almost to orbit.

In fact, they were probably
maybe 20 seconds away

from actually attaining orbit.

This image taken
from a satellite

about 280 miles over Earth.

When Russia invaded Ukraine,

it was an all-hands-on-deck
for our company.

Planet's technology has been
essential in tracking

Russia's ongoing war
in Ukraine.

You had Russia telling us

they were not
gonna invade Ukraine.

In our imagery, you could
see the troop buildup.

This is now the first war
that everyone gets to see

what's happening in real time.

The Russian army
does not strike

at any civilian targets.

Putin said, "We don't
bomb civilian targets."

We showed the next day
on the front page

of "The New York Times"

the five hospitals and schools
that they had bombed.

So how do you know
these are new graves?

This is fresh brown dirt.

And they've been using
bulldozers

to slowly dig out
these trenches.

The broad impact, I think,
is that it's helping

to lift the fog of war.

Planet's clients
include the U.S. government

and many other governments.

You know, their key
objective was a utopian one.

In fact, they called
their satellites Doves,

that they were
sort of peace sats.

Now, what's interesting
to me is that

a peace sat can do
a lot of things.

With any
new technology, right,

it comes with the great hope
for the future.

And then reality sets in,

and you realize that, as with
anything that humans do,

there are pluses and minuses.

The founders of Planet
have talked

about how their goal was

to use this imaging technology
for the benefit of the world,

particularly choosing
the resolution of the camera

so that it was good enough
to count every tree

and not high enough

to raise privacy concerns.

On the other hand,

a lot of their market now
is the military.

This gives any country
the same power

that a superpower like Russia
or China had before.

Now they can see

everything that's happening
in their country.

And, like, maybe
they use that for good.

And maybe
they use that for bad.

Like, if you want to know

where some refugees
are hiding out,

you can watch that
all the time.

The technology to get
higher-resolution imagery

is emerging.

And the government's
regulation is receding.

Privacy is very much an issue.

Right now
if a guy wanted to look

at his ex-wife's driveway

to see if her car's there
or not,

the guy could conceivably take
two satellite images a day.

We're not safe from
satellite-imagery analysis.

Hello, and welcome

to Rocket Lab's
mission control center

in Auckland, New Zealand,
for Rocket Like a Hurricane,

a dedicated mission
for NASA to launch

the TROPICS constellation

of hurricane-monitoring
satellites.

The original contract was
awarded to another provider.

They put it in the ocean.

And then they awarded it to us,

and we successfully put it
into orbit.

End of story.

NASA awards
all the future contracts

to Rocket Lab
for the TROPICS mission.

And so, like,
clear blow to Chris.

We've been trading right now
under a dollar a share

for the majority of this year.

And NASDAQ will not allow us
to remain listed

if we do not trade
for more than a dollar a share

for more
than ten trading days.

So we're kind of
in this laser-focus mode,

where let's make
every penny count.

Let's make every person count.
Let's make every hour count.

On paper,
Astra still might have

enough money
to build a larger rocket

and get to launch it.

They're in a tricky spot
financially, mainly,

but also some
technical hurdles.

But without money,
you can't continue, right?

This is about two years
in the making.

A lot of people have lost
a lot of trust in Astra,

generally, the market people
and their confidence

in our ability to go deliver,

whether or not they think
we can do that.

The stakes are pretty high.

We need to be successful
out the gate.

We can't afford to have
another mishap mission.

So reliability needs to be up.

Qualification needs to be up.

It's the old story
of just try, try again.

And sometimes
the company goes down.

In the case of Chris Kemp,

he's had a few
that have gone down.

But he keeps trying.

And now I'd like
to invite Chris Kemp

back onstage
for one more thing.

Cool. Thanks, Margot.

Thanks, Margot.

And I need my mic on
a little bit.

I'm gonna just do
the walk-on-stage thing

one more time.

Tomorrow morning we have
several hundred people

from across
the space industry--

shareholders of Astra,
customers of Astra,

press, media, analysts.

So it was a difficult year
for Astra.

And there's no way
to sugarcoat that.

Chris is
an incredible entrepreneur.

He has pulled rabbits
out of hats on many occasions.

I really can't tell you
which way it's gonna go.

But it's not like
there's a trivial probability

of it blowing up, so to speak.

In the spirit
of announcing new products,

I wanted to,
on behalf of everyone

here at Astra,
announce Rocket 4.

We had to put everything
into this new rocket.

So I think that there are
two scenarios here.

We either succeed,

or we're done.

A bunch of space companies
are gonna fail.

That's the nature
of venture-funded companies.

Does that mean
those companies just go away?

The capabilities go away?

The technology goes away?
The people go--No.

Virgin Orbit
went bankrupt recently.

And its competitors
bought its facilities,

took over its leases,
hired its experts.

They did go bankrupt.

And, you know,
we bought their assets.

And their assets live on
now building Neutron.

It is an absolute beast.

It stands 40 meters tall.

It has a 7-meter diameter
at the base

and a 5-meter class fairing.

So Neutron is
basically our answer

to a SpaceX
Falcon 9-class rocket.

It's fairly clear
that SpaceX are

absolutely the dominant player.

They're almost a monopoly,
if you will.

It's good to have
some competition.

We think we've got
a reusable vehicle

that will be
really, really competitive.

We'll build it
and bring it to market.

And, you know, we'll see--

we'll see who wins.

Rocket Lab is taking
all their money.

And they're putting it
into a giant vehicle

that will compete
directly with Falcon 9.

So they are moving away
from a small vehicle

mostly because we're gonna,
at some point, eat their lunch.

Ah, fuck.

I mean, probably a call
with him is best.

Quarter is burning away.

We're burning time.
We're burning money.

And I have a $1,400
water-jet garnet PO.

If we can push
that payment through,

that'll keep
the water-jet running.

Something's got to give.

And now is the time
to break it and go and fix it.

Or I will simply
just take it over

and fucking run it myself.

Astra's admitted out loud

they're not only pushing
Rocket 4 back,

but, also, they might not
even get to launch the rocket

because they really don't have
enough money

to do it at the moment.

These scenarios
have to be matched

to what is desired
in terms of outcome--

near-term and long-term.

In terms of the schedule.

In terms of a desired
launch date, yeah.

So we had a board meeting.

What the board's looking at is,
they're looking at that plan.

And they're saying,
if you want a year of runway,

you have to cut more.

And that'll cause
the market to respond

very favorably
to the transaction.

But the dichotomy is,
in order to achieve that,

we have to cut deeper.

So, to save ourselves,
we have to cut ourselves.

If we can lead the team
through the ultimate sacrifice

of everyone being let go...

but then potentially getting

all these contracts
and getting the financing,

we might not have to let--

Well, we probably will still
let some people go.

But we might not have to let
anywhere near as many go.

That's the challenge.

You got to do something, right?

I mean, you can't--
you know, clock is ticking.

Just know, when we succeed,
it's gonna make--

it's gonna be great to watch.

And we are gonna succeed.
Failure is not an option.

Today Planet
images the entire Earth

every single day.

Mission accomplished.

Thank you.

What's Mission 2?

It's space plus AI.

I'm really excited
about the future of AI

on top of Planet's data.

You know, we're scanning
the whole Earth every day--

4 million pictures
of the Earth each day.

It's an insane amount of data.

By turning each picture
into information

about what's going on
in that picture,

we're enabling you
to search the Earth.

The potential there is to do
planetary-scale forensics,

to look back in time
through our archive

and find things
that you didn't even know now

you needed to look for.

Planet, in a way, has turned
on the time machine.

We're getting to the point

where you don't even have
to train the AI

on any object
you want to find.

You can actually just show it
one example.

And it will just go

and find all of the others
automatically,

even find things

you don't even know
you want to look for.

It's just getting to a point
of tremendous power

that is much simpler now
than it was

even just a year ago.

There is opportunity
and risk

in the commercial sector.

I think we'll see
more innovation.

And we'll see things
moving faster.

That also means
that there is a shifting

of where power is coming from.

In Ukraine's fight to push
out Russian invaders...

One of the most critical
pieces of technology

doesn't fire rockets
or bullets.

It's small, easy-to-use
satellite internet terminals

called Starlink.

And they've been vital
for soldiers' communication,

flying drones,
and artillery targeting.

Antennas had been put
all over Ukraine.

The military
could communicate.

The government
could communicate.

All of Russia's best-laid plans
were now under serious threat.

You can make
a very strong case

that Ukraine was able
to fight this war successfully

because of this technology.

Last week reports emerged

of widespread sudden Starlink
outages on the front line.

Is that something that
SpaceX is doing intentionally?

Elon Musk has complete
control of the technology

and can turn off satellites
whenever he wants.

If Elon wants Starlink
to be running in Ukraine,

it's running in Ukraine.

When he decides he's had
a nice phone call

with Vladimir Putin and he
wants to turn Starlink off,

he can do that.

The U.S. government,
European allies--

there's nothing they can do.

They have nothing
equivalent to Starlink

to replace this technology.

Musk says
he was reportedly afraid

that Russia would retaliate
with nuclear weapons.

Musk says that's based
on his private discussions

he had
with senior Russian officials.

This is one
grand regime change

from countries that used
to control all this power

now to individuals.

That has military
and political leaders

around the world worried
and questioning

whether one man should have
complete control of the skies.

Russia may be keeping
an additional eye

on the war in Ukraine
from space.

The Americans claim
that China is using

its low Earth orbit satellites

to spy on American
military installations.

Satellites are a target.

If you can destroy the enemy's
satellite capability,

then you can get
a decisive advantage.

India launched
its first successful

anti-satellite missile
on Wednesday.

There are
many different ways

you can do
an anti-satellite test.

One of them is to launch
a missile from the ground

and hit your own satellite,
which just, you know,

breaks up
into a million pieces.

Outrage from U.S. officials
after Russia carried out

a missile test early Monday,

obliterating one of its own satellites

and creating
a vast debris field

that's now orbiting Earth.

They launched a missile into
a defunct 1982 spy satellite

that they owned

to show that they could do that
to an American satellite

if they were so moved.

So now you have
thousands of satellites

which themselves are
potentially weapons.

You know, one of
the big concerns is that,

in an actual warfare,
if somebody did that,

they may, you know,
even accidentally

sort of ruin low Earth orbit
for use.

So there's a thing
we call the Kessler effect.

If you have a satellite
that explodes

and now all of its pieces
are going different directions

at 17,000 miles an hour,

some of them are gonna hit
other satellites eventually.

And then if that makes
that satellite break apart,

now you have a chain reaction.

Letting that chain reaction
run to completion,

you can end up
with all of the spacecraft

in low Earth orbit
getting shredded to confetti.

The regulatory bodies

that look over
these kinds of things

are just ill-equipped
and unprepared

for what has descended
upon them.

They were used to a world
that changed very slowly,

that they had
a lot of control over

and monitoring.

There's no place to say,
where are we heading

with our space activities
in the very long term?

The track record
of the human species

is not that great.

All of these issues

that cause us trouble
here on Earth,

we're gonna export them
into space.

That's just the way it is.

Exactly how this plays out
is anyone's guess.

It reminds me of, like,

the early days
of the Internet.

You think, like, Yahoo's
gonna be around forever,

you know, and then,
like, Google comes along.

I think
we're at this stage now

where the wheat is being
separated from the chaff.

One time,
there was something like

over 100 small rocket startups
globally--

in many cases
more significantly funded

than Rocket Lab.

You know, lots of dreams,
lots of aspiration,

lots of cash.

At the end of the day,
physics just does not care

how much money you put in it.

It is great
to be joining you today

from Rocket Lab
mission control

in Auckland, New Zealand,

to send our 42nd Electron
to orbit.

Why are you attracted
to the super hard stuff?

I don't know.
I don't know.

Stage two ignition
confirmed.

Rocket Lab's launched
over 40 rockets.

It's doing reusable rockets.

It's building a bigger rocket
to compete

head-to-head with SpaceX.

They've done it.

There's SpaceX,
and there's Rocket Lab.

There's Elon Musk
and Peter Beck,

and that's pretty much it.

The only sin in business
is to run out of money.

That's why,
when we still have money,

we need to make
the tough choices to cut.

So, fundamentally,
it's all about

doing what we have to do
to survive,

to take care of our customers,

and now take care
of our shareholders.

Hell of a day.

Yeah, it's been
a hell of a day.

So I actually feel
a bit relieved

to be on the other side
of that.

We've had to make
some difficult cuts.

We've moved some people around.

We've prioritized the things

that are keeping
the business going.

So we can continue
to work on everything.

In a way, we're good at this,
because...

you know, when you spend years

building a really
complicated machine

and a boat gets in your way...

ten seconds away from launch,

you just realize you have
to come back tomorrow,

do it all again.

It's like Groundhog Day.

- I mean, realistically...
- Yeah.

What's the possibility
you'll go out?

Oh, no, no, no, I'm saying
that we're gonna do this.

I know,
but there is a possibility

that you guys will go
out of business.

I mean, sure, if I die.

But as long as I'm alive,

we're gonna make
this thing come together.

I mean, I'm not giving up.

If you look at this,
this is a giant, open space...

When I met Chris
for the first time

in these totally shitty,
dilapidated buildings

in Alameda
and he told me,

"One day, these will be
gleaming rocket factories,"

I thought, no way.

And he did build those.

He did exactly what he said
he was gonna do.

It just didn't work out.