The Pentagon Is Spending Billions In Orbit, But Finding The Right Stock Might Prove Tricky
To me, there is nothing quite as frustrating as watching a massive structural shift in the global economy and finding out the front door is locked. I have been watching the markets for long enough to know that when the Pentagon opens its chequebook, investors usually lose their minds. The United States Space Force has just awarded SpaceX a staggering 1.6 billion dollar contract. The agreement covers eighteen Falcon 9 missions stretching through to 2027. The payload consists of Pentagon missile tracking satellites. This is not experimental technology. This hardware sits at the very core of American national security.
I think we need to look at the history of defence spending to understand why this matters. For decades, the American military industrial complex operated like a very exclusive, incredibly slow country club. Companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin were the undisputed lords of the manor. Cost overruns were not a problem. They were effectively written into the business model. The government handed over blank cheques, and the contractors eventually delivered a product. It was a brittle system. It was ossified. Then, a few engineers in California started landing rockets backwards on floating barges.
The rules of gravity changed, both literally and financially.
The Department of Defence is clearly shifting toward commercial launch providers as their primary delivery mechanism. The rationale is incredibly simple. SpaceX offers a reliable cadence and competitive pricing that legacy providers simply cannot match. The sheer mechanical violence of a rocket launch is a spectacle. The smell of refined kerosene hangs heavy on the launchpad. Millions of pounds of thrust tear into the concrete. But for an investor, the real spectacle is the paperwork. The fact that the Pentagon keeps returning to SpaceX tells you everything you need to know about how Washington views the landscape. Reliability at scale is the only metric that matters now.
Here is the fundamental problem for anyone watching this story from an investment perspective. SpaceX is a private company. There is no stock ticker, and there is no earnings call. You cannot simply log into your brokerage account and buy a slice of the pie. For the vast majority of retail investors, the biggest winner in the space race is entirely out of reach.
This is where the Destiny Tech 100 fund enters the conversation. This is a closed end fund listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It holds positions in a range of private technology companies. SpaceX is among its most prominent holdings. For investors who want some form of exposure to this orbital narrative, this fund has functioned as one of the only accessible routes.
But I have seen this movie before, and it rarely ends well for the latecomers.
The catch with this fund is a significant one. It has historically traded at a substantial premium to its net asset value. In simple terms, investors are paying considerably more than the underlying companies are actually worth on paper. When market sentiment is bullish, that premium swells. Investors essentially pay a hefty tax for the privilege of proximity. But when the market catches a cold, that premium can compress with violent speed. You could watch the underlying companies perform brilliantly, yet still lose a significant chunk of your money simply because the premium vanished. All investments carry risk, and paying a premium for illiquid assets is a structural trap that could easily wipe out your capital.
If paying a pound for fifty pence gives you pause, the more direct argument for participation runs through the listed companies that are actively building government revenue streams of their own.
Rocket Lab is the most credible smaller rival currently trading on the public markets. They have been quietly and methodically building a catalogue of government and commercial missions. They are not trying to be the next SpaceX. They are trying to be the first Rocket Lab. Their primary vehicle is a smaller rocket called the Electron. If SpaceX is a massive freight train, Rocket Lab operates like a bespoke courier service.
Sometimes the military does not need a freight train. Sometimes they have a highly sensitive, dedicated payload that requires absolute schedule certainty. They want a rocket that leaves exactly when they dictate, rather than waiting for space on a shared flight. This is where Rocket Lab might carve out a very lucrative niche. As the satellite constellation ambitions of the military expand, the demand for small and responsive launch capabilities could grow alongside the headline contracts.
Intuitive Machines operates in a slightly different theatre. They have built a growing book of space agency and defence contracts centred on lunar logistics and space communications. They are not trying to compete on launch cadence. They want to build the infrastructure that the Pentagon needs once those assets are actually in orbit.
Bringing critical communications architecture under domestic control is a major priority for Washington right now. If the military expands its presence beyond low Earth orbit, companies providing mission critical services might find their addressable market widening considerably.
It is also important to realise that these payloads are getting much smarter. We are no longer just putting dumb metal into the sky. The new satellites are intelligent nodes in a massive computational network. If you want to understand how artificial intelligence and aerospace are colliding to create entirely new paradigms, the AI Space Race (SpaceX-xAI) Creates New Investment Wave basket represents a fascinating shift in how we might view orbital infrastructure.
This is not a one off infrastructure project.
This is a fundamental shift in how we should view government procurement. If the government builds a bridge, the money is spent, and the contractors move on. But satellite networks operate more like a mandatory subscription service. A satellite goes up into the cold void of space. It faces radiation, debris, and orbital decay. Eventually, it reaches the end of its useful life. It has to be replaced. The cycle begins again. The military budget essentially becomes a recurring revenue stream for the companies that can reliably deliver hardware into orbit.
There is also a geopolitical dimension that we must take seriously. Trade policy uncertainty and rising tensions with peer competitors have accelerated the commitment to domestic space capability. The political appetite for relying on foreign launch providers has effectively collapsed. No politician in Washington is going to vote to offshore national security. This dynamic might create a sustained tailwind for listed space companies, regardless of which political party occupies the White House.
However, it would be dishonest to present this as a guaranteed path to profit. There are no safe bets in the stock market, and the space sector is particularly unforgiving.
The most obvious headwind for the listed rivals is the sheer dominance of SpaceX itself. When the Pentagon awards a massive contract to a single provider, it is deliberately choosing not to distribute that revenue across a broader range of companies. Rocket Lab and Intuitive Machines might benefit from the general increase in spending, but they are not the direct recipients of these specific windfalls. The gravity of a monopoly can easily crush smaller players who are starved of oxygen.
Government contracts are also notoriously fickle. Defence budgets are subject to endless political cycles, continuing resolution uncertainty, and shifting strategic priorities. A contract won today does not guarantee a follow on award tomorrow. Companies that are heavily dependent on government revenue are exposed to the rhythms of the budget process in ways that purely commercial businesses are not.
Finally, we must acknowledge the brutal reality of early stage investing. Both of these public alternatives are relatively young businesses by traditional financial metrics. Their growth profiles might look compelling on a spreadsheet, but execution risk remains incredibly high. Building rockets and lunar landers is a fiercely difficult way to make a living. A single mechanical failure on a launchpad can send a stock price into a devastating tailspin. Neither company is generating the kind of free cash flow that would make them conventionally defensive holdings, and investors could lose their entire principal if these companies fail to scale their operations profitably.
Navigating this new industrial landscape requires a pragmatic approach. The billions flowing into orbit represent a genuine shift in military strategy, but capturing a share of that capital requires careful attention to valuations and a high tolerance for volatility. The opportunities are certainly there, but in the business of space exploration, the margin for error is always zero.