(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of a billionaire close to SpaceX founder Elon Musk as the new head of NASA is good news for rocket and satellite makers, according to the chief executive officer of one of SpaceX’s biggest rivals.
Rocket Lab USA Inc. CEO Peter Beck welcomed the nomination of Jared Isaacman, a financial technology executive who has traveled on two SpaceX missions — performing the world’s first commercial space walk in September — and has invested an undisclosed sum in Musk’s company.
“Having an astronaut run a space agency is a great thing,” Beck said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday. “You have to have a deep understanding of the industry. Having a passionate person heading up the agency is a positive thing.”
Rocket Lab, which conducts launches in both the US and New Zealand, is the second-most prolific American launcher, with 13 missions this year. The company was founded in Auckland in 2006 before moving its headquarters to the US in 2013.
While that puts it far behind SpaceX, which has more than 100, Rocket Lab nonetheless has been a beneficiary of investor optimism about pro-space policies in the incoming administration. Its stock price has almost doubled since Election Day, lifting its market value to around $11.5 billion.
With Musk enjoying a close relationship with the president-elect after providing extensive support to Trump’s campaign, Isaacman’s nomination is likely to provoke more concern about SpaceX gaining an advantage from favorable NASA policies and contracting.
However, Beck brushed aside concerns about a conflict of interest.
“I can’t imagine that all those conflict rules and processes that have been longstanding and part of the fabric of US democracy are going to get ignored,” he said. “In some respects, it might not look great on paper but I trust in the system that any conflicts will be controlled.”
Rocket Lab works with NASA, although at a smaller scale than SpaceX, which provides the agency with the primary mode of astronaut travel to and from the International Space Station.
In August, Rocket Lab announced the delivery of two spacecraft built by the company for a NASA mission to Mars. The company followed with an October announcement of a NASA contract to complete a study for a Martian sample-return mission.
Rocket Lab on Nov. 25 said it finalized a $23.9 million deal with the outgoing Biden administration’s Commerce Department to expand production of space-grade solar cells at a facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
--With assistance from Haidi Lun.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
