Few events last year aroused the imagination as much as the launch of Rocket Lab's Ātea-1 sounding rocket from Great Mercury Island in November. Named Manu Karere (Blue Messenger) by local iwi, Ngati Hei, the successful launch signalled a start, more than an ending, for the rocket's creator and CEO of Rocket Lab, Peter Beck.
Peter has an interesting pedigree as an engineer and at a relatively young age, he is poised to be one of New Zealand's significant contributors. He has already been honoured with the award of the Cooper Medal by the Royal Society.
Starting out as an apprentice toolmaker at Fisher & Paykel's production facilities outside of Dunedin, Peter spent eight years getting hands on experience in precision tooling before a stint working for a super yacht company in New Plymouth. He then moved to IRL - Industrial Research Limited - as part of their smart materials and structures team.
Throughout a lot of his working career though, Peter had been, "mucking around with rockets", and says that he, "liked the engineering challenge - they're simple to look at but getting them to hang together is full of challenges".
