This failed. The viewer is left with the impression of Kemp as an intelligent and gifted salesman but also someone who is not very good at rockets.
Lunches are eaten
An example comes later in the film, during footage from 2023. By this time, it’s clear that Astra’s initial rocket was a failure across many attempts. As it turns out, the company’s fast-and-loose approach to building rockets quickly and cheaply did not work in an industry where the smallest problem can cause spectacular explosions. Astra could have used a little more of the gold-plating and quality control of Rocket Lab. In the documentary, Kemp vows to institute these practices in a new booster, Rocket 4.
At the time, Rocket Lab had launched dozens of Electrons successfully and had begun work on a larger vehicle, Neutron, to compete directly with SpaceX’s industry-leading Falcon 9 booster. Yet even at this late hour, when it’s more likely than not that Astra will never launch another rocket again, Kemp could not help himself. Rocket Lab, he says, will pivot away from small launch because Astra is about to “eat their lunch.” In reality, Rocket Lab ended up stealing Astra’s lunch money.
There’s more to the film than the Rocket Lab-Astra rivalry. A third company, Planet, and its co-founders are profiled. This is insightful stuff about the revolution in commercial optical data in commerce and war. But it’s secondary to the main narrative, and it feels a bit shoe-horned in. Similarly, the Pete Worden material is fascinating but also ancillary.
The bottom line is that this is a fine film for anyone interested in the small rocket wars and taking more than a peek behind the curtain of how the rocket sausage gets made.
