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Should you invest in data centers in space?

2026 is shaping up to be a hell of a year for space.

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk want to build artificial intelligence (AI) data centers in orbit.

I visited a startup planning to mine asteroids (more below).

I met another company making drugs in space (seriously).

One of Robinhood’s (HOOD) founders started a venture focused on beaming down solar power from “up there.”

We’re in the early innings of space’s infrastructure buildout.

Most of the space stocks ripping higher right now will go bust. Space is hard!

But a few great businesses will make it, and I’m focused on owning them.

  • RiskHedge publisher Dan Steinhart and I recently took a two-week trip across the US…

Meeting over 40 of America’s leading innovators and thinkers.

One of the highlights was spending a Sunday afternoon with Matt Gialich. Matt is the founder and CEO of LA-based asteroid mining startup AstroForge.

Inside a 30,000-sqare-foot warehouse in Seal Beach, Matt and his team are building satellites to mine platinum-group metals from asteroids 30 million miles away.

It sounds like sci-fi. I’m not sure it will work. But I love the ambition. The only reason this audacious dream is even possible is because the cost of going to space collapsed.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has cut the cost of reaching orbit by 90% since 2000:


Source: FutureBlind on Substack

For my whole life, space has been a story of nostalgia. We looked back at grainy footage of the Apollo missions and wondered why we stopped going.

Answer: It was too expensive.

Thanks mostly to SpaceX’s reusable rockets, we’re now entering space’s infrastructure era.

  • One underappreciated shift over the last decade is…

The reins of frontier innovation changing hands from governments to corporations. Projects that once needed state support are now being incubated by companies.

Take SpaceX, for example. It now controls 90% of the orbital launch market. SpaceX = the new NASA.

Elon’s rocket scientists have launched more mass into orbit since their first flight in 2006 than the rest of the US combined in its entire history!


Source: Flight Atlas

SpaceX essentially runs a bus to space every few days. Companies wanting to do business in orbit can hitch a ride on its rockets. Yes, there are real valuable businesses being built in space right now.

When Dan and I were down in Austin, Texas, we saw Starlink’s factory. Inside, rows of robots pump out 15,000 internet dishes each day. 

These Starlinks connect with satellites in outer space, which beam down high-speed broadband from the stars.


Source: NextBigFuture on Substack

When we were in California six months ago, we visited a startup called Varda, which is manufacturing drugs in orbit. Without gravity, Varda can grow perfect crystals for drugs like the HIV treatment Ritonavir, which is impossible to do on Earth.

Space startup Muon recently launched FireSat, which acts as a thermostat for Earth. While current satellites scan for fires every 12 hours, FireSat scans every 20 minutes—spotting wildfires as small as a classroom before they get out of control.

  • One theme I often talk about is the “innovation avalanche.”

For the past 50 years, technology has mostly been concentrated in computers and IT. Now, we’re seeing real breakthroughs in the physical world.
 

There's no better example of this shift than Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, who went from building investing apps to satellites. Bhatt’s new startup, Aetherflux, is designing satellites to harvest solar power in orbit and beam it back down to Earth using infrared lasers.

Google (GOOGL) even announced that it’s building data centers in space! Your favorite AI, powered by the sun, 650 km above your head.

Again, I’m not sure that’s a viable business. But the point is, for the time first ever, we’re seeing real infrastructure being built in space.

Here’s how I think about investing in the “Space Stack:”

  • Level 0: The rails. This is SpaceX. It solved the transportation problem. It’s the “Union Pacific” of this era.
  • Level 1: The infrastructure. These are companies building the warehouses, power grids, and ports that sit on top of the rails. This is the “sweet spot” for investors today.
  • Level 2: The applications. Eventually, we’ll have data centers and asteroid mines in space.

Building out the infrastructure to enable every five-year-old boy’s astronaut dreams is the big moneymaking opportunity today.

  • SpaceX is the “FedEx” trucking cargo to orbit. But it’s still a private company… until it IPO’s later this year.

But right now, you can buy the company that owns the warehouses, the ports, and the utilities once you reach space.

We wrote about this disruptor in November’s Disruption_X issue. The stock has already gained 56% since then.

Members can read about it here. Disruption_X is currently closed to new members, but Jolt readers will be among the first to know when we re-open enrollment.

Stephen McBride
Chief Analyst, RiskHedge