NZ to Join Space Race; Rockets to Blast 150km Above the South Island

By FIELD, Michael; MCKENZIE-MCLEAN Jo

A KIWI company has unveiled high hopes of rocketing into space, outlining bold plans to send scientific packages, dna and even human ashes above Earth.

Auckland firm Rocket Lab has announced plans to launch six rockets into space, probably blasting off from the South Island, and starting in September next year.

The rockets would travel 150km above Earth and could be used for scientific research, business development manager Mark Rocket said.

Rocket Lab had also signed a deal with American firm Celestis to send human ashes into space.

Based in Houston, Texas, Celestis has offered “space burials” since 1997, firing off rockets containing the ashes of cremated people into the stratosphere.

Earlier this year Celestis sent the ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan — who played Scottie the engineer — into space.

Mr Rocket and lead designer Peter Beck yesterday unveiled Atea- 01, a 5.5-metre-tall rocket designed to travel at four times the speed of sound and named after the Maori word for space. The rockets would be recovered from the sea using a helicopter.

Mr Rocket said New Zealand had a “golden opportunity” to be a space industry leader in the southern hemisphere.

This country was a good place for launching rockets with clear airspace, a good infrastructure and a favourable regulatory environment. The rockets could be used for scientific research, investigating micro-gravity, solar physics and climate change.

Mr Beck said the Kiwi space bid would provide a platform for scientific instruments, and the company planned to market its technology, systems and components to the international space industry.

Sending scientific projects into space would cost between $50,000 and $100,000 depending on the type of experiment and how high the rocket would need to go, a company spokesman said. The company’s demonstration video suggested a launch from the southeast coast of the South Island.

Mr Rocket, an Internet entrepreneur who changed his surname by deed poll, is also one of four Kiwis — among 200 people from 30 countries — who have signed up for $256,000-a-seat space flights with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic after 2009.

Rocket Lab had received some government funding but Mr Rocket was meeting most of the costs.

The company is confident of sending ashes into space and is also touting a service to carry business cards and plaques into space and returning them — all for an as yet undisclosed fee.

Clients could also send dna samples into space and get them back, certified as space travellers.

The company has also offered moon “burials”, in which capsules are carried on lunar mission spacecraft, for $NZ19,230.

Economic Development Minister Trevor Mallard, who attended yesterday’s launch, said Rocket Lab would enhance New Zealand’s emerging reputation as a developer of “first-rate” technology and components.

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(c) 2007 Dominion Post. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.