Are you ready for the biggest IPO of all time?
SpaceX is preparing to go public in 2026. It’s targeting a $1.5 trillion valuation, which would make it the biggest IPO of all time.
This news has lit a fire under space stocks.
Mercury System (MRCY), which makes “space computers,” soared 41%.
Firefly Aerospace (FLY), the first commercial company to successfully land on the moon, surged 49%.
And space infrastructure stock Redwire Corp. (RDW) shot up 54%.
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.
SpaceX’s reusable rockets slashed the cost of going to space by 95%.
SpaceX = the new NASA. Elon Musk’s rocket scientists have launched more mass into orbit since its first flight in 2006 than the rest of the US combined in its entire history:
Source: @ApoStructura on X
In 2025, SpaceX set a new annual record with 170+ launches. This means a SpaceX rocket went up roughly every other day.
Rockets to space are supposed to be rare. SpaceX made them routine.
SpaceX essentially runs a bus to space every few days. Companies wanting to do business in orbit can hitch a ride on its rockets.
When RiskHedge publisher Dan Steinhart and I were in California a few months ago, we visited a startup called Varda. It’s making drugs in orbit.
Without gravity, Varda can grow perfect crystals for drugs like the HIV treatment Ritonavir, which is impossible to do on Earth.
Another startup called Muon recently launched FireSat. It acts as a thermostat for Earth. While current satellites scan for fires every 12 hours, FireSat scans every 20 minutes. It can spot wildfires as small as a classroom before they get out of control.
Aetherflux—started by Robinhood’s (HOOD) co-founder Baiju Bhatt—is designing satellites to harvest solar power in orbit and beam it back down to Earth using infrared lasers.
Starlink.
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
This matters a lot in places where the internet is controlled, censored, or fragile.
During protests in Iran, Starlink terminals allowed people to stay connected after the government throttled access. The same thing has happened in Ukraine, in disaster areas, and in remote regions where building infrastructure is slow or impossible.
Starlink is a booming business. It now serves 8 million users across more than 150 countries.
SpaceX raked in $15 billion in revenue in 2025. Some $12 billion of it came just from selling Starlink dishes and subscriptions.
And unlike rockets, monthly subscriptions offer recurring, high-margin income. Starlink is the reason SpaceX is the most valuable private company in the world.
That’s what Google (GOOGL) and Elon Musk’s xAI want to build.
Your favorite artificial intelligence, powered by the sun, 650 km above your head.
I’m not sure that’s a viable business. At least, not yet. Space data centers would likely serve other space systems first before delivering ChatGPT to your laptop.
But for the time first ever, we’re seeing real infrastructure being built in space.
And as we’ve seen with other disruptions, the infrastructure comes first. The applications that change everything arrive soon after.
Electricity was built decades before household appliances transformed daily life.
The internet existed long before streaming, cloud software, and online shopping came around.
Smartphones were just hardware until app stores turned them into platforms that replaced cameras, maps, wallets, and computers.
Space is following the same pattern.
Drug companies, using space’s unique properties to pump out higher-quality drugs.
In microgravity, fluids behave more predictably and crystals grow more uniformly. The same advantage applies to advanced fiber optics and specialty materials, where gravity introduces defects that limit performance on Earth.
Space is also the perfect environment for making high-end chips and other precision manufacturing.
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Space has no humidity… no corrosion… and no dust. So sensitive hardware degrades slower. Optics stay cleaner. And systems can run longer between interventions.
And you can power all these operations with solar panels that receive sunlight around the clock.
The ones building real businesses. And the ones selling dreams.
Many investors will burn themselves chasing the “next SpaceX.” They’ll invest in companies with great stories, but no clear roadmap to profits.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re buying SpaceX while investing in a space dream.
Even with launch costs falling rapidly, going to space is hard. Operating there is harder. Building a durable space business is harder still. As with every technological gold rush, I wouldn’t be surprised if 80% to 90% of space startups end up going bankrupt.
Investing in a great megatrend is just one part of the equation. The other is owning great businesses with real economics. That’s our core principle at RiskHedge. And it’s how we approach investing in space, too.
We already own two space stocks inside our Disruption_X advisory. We’ll add more over time as the final frontier opens for business.
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