Make This a Top Investing Theme in 2026 VIEW IN BROWSER  | BY KEITH KAPLAN
CEO, TRADESMITH |
On a launch pad on the MΔhia Peninsula on New Zealand’s North Island East Coast, a black-and-white rocket about five stories tall stands poised for launch. White plumes of vapor curl from its mostly 3D-printed Rutherford engines as technicians clear the area. Seconds later, it climbs on a roaring column of flame – carrying six satellites, each no bigger than a carry-on suitcase, that will soon orbit Earth every 90 minutes. 
An Electron rocket stands at Rocket Lab’s private spaceport in New Zealand Satellites like these map crop yields across the Midwest, track shipping traffic through the South China Sea, and coordinate military operations around the world… among thousands of other commercial, scientific, and security applications. A generation ago, launching a satellite like this was typically the domain of governments – and often carried price tags in the hundreds of millions of dollars. But thanks to reusable boosters, 3D-printed engines, automated manufacturing, and standardized satellite design, the price of launching a kilogram (2.2 pounds) into low-Earth orbit has fallen by an order of magnitude – from tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram to a few thousand dollars. And that money is now coming from the private sector, not taxpayers. That’s why there were 329 orbital launches last year – about one every 26 hours. And it’s why 2025 set a record for satellite deployments. But it’s not the launches themselves that are the most impressive. It’s what happens after those rockets deploy their payloads into orbit. Each new launch adds another link in a growing orbital economy. Satellites that: - Transmit internet to rural villages
- Forecast weather for insurers
- Provide real-time intelligence and surveillance for militaries
- And monitor everything from pipelines to border crossings
Space is no longer a destination. It’s a new layer of infrastructure – a high-altitude extension of the digital economy made up of machines circling a few hundred miles above our heads. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research about the massive investment opportunity in the growing space economy. That’s thanks to a tip-off from one of the newest developments here at TradeSmith – what we’re simply calling our “themes” tool for now. (More on that below.) And the more I learn about what’s going on in orbit, the more excited I get about the potential payoff. So today, I’m kicking off a series about how to invest in the space economy and why I hope you’ll make it a top investing theme to track in 2026. For the first time since the dawn of the internet, a planet-spanning digital infrastructure is being built – and unlike the space race in the 1950s and 1960s, it’s open to regular investors. Folks who recognize this shift now could see the same kind of windfall profits that semiconductors and the internet created in the 1970s and the 1990s. That means potentially fortune-making gains. Early backers of Intel in the 1970s were able to turn a $10,000 stake into several million dollars by the time personal computers went mainstream. And investors in Amazon when it first went public in 1997 saw $10,000 grow to more than $10 million two decades later. Each past wave of infrastructure minted new millionaires. This one will, too. | Recommended Link | | | | Gold has hit all-time highs, breaking $4000 an ounce – but history shows it could be on the verge of its biggest bull run in over half a century… triggered by a likely major event, eerily similar to what happened in the 1970s. (It’s NOT inflation or anything you’re likely expecting.) Now, a top analyst says you can capture ALL of the upside without touching a risky miner or a boring exchange-traded fund. He sees extraordinary potential gains long term with very little risk. See this immediately. |  | | A New Network Is Being Built Above Our Heads Every major leap in civilization has been built on some kind of new network infrastructure. - In the 1800s, it was the railroads – hundreds of thousands of miles of iron track that connected the industrializing world.
- In the 1900s, it was the electrical grid and interstate highways. They paved the way for our modern era of mass production and global trade.
- At the turn of the millennium, it was the fiber-optic cables that created the high-speed internet. Without it, neither the digital economy nor today’s AI boom would be possible.
Now, a new network is taking shape hundreds of miles overhead. The global space economy – projected by McKinsey to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035 – isn’t about sending astronauts to the Moon. It’s about turning space into an extension of Earth’s infrastructure – a place where communication, computing, and surveillance now happen above our heads. Several converging forces are catalyzing its growth: - Reusable rockets have broken the cost curve.
In the 1990s, it cost about $10,000 per kilogram to reach orbit. Today, SpaceX can do it for roughly $2,000 to $3,000 per kilogram, thanks to rockets that fly, land, and fly again. That innovation has unlocked a budding commercial space economy. - AI is changing what happens after those payloads reach orbit.
Modern satellites no longer just collect data. They also process it in real time. Machine-learning algorithms increasingly run directly on satellites, filtering and analyzing imagery and radio-frequency data in orbit – flagging drought stress in crops or congestion at major ports faster than traditional ground-based analysis alone. - Government and private companies are teaming up.
Facing competition from rivals overseas, U.S. agencies, defense contractors, telecom giants, and private startups are collaborating on projects that once ran in isolation. NASA hires private launch firms for crewed missions. The Pentagon rents bandwidth from commercial satellite networks. The U.S. Space Force buys imagery and analytics from commercial firms to monitor global activity in near-real time. This has accelerated investment in space companies. According to Seraphim Space, venture funding hit $8.6 billion in 2024. And Washington is throwing its weight behind private space firms to maintain U.S. dominance in orbit. It’s one of the few areas where bipartisan support and heavy investment still align. The New Space Race Is Global It’s not just U.S. dollars pouring into the space economy. Tens of billions of euro and hundreds of billions of Chinese yuan are flooding in, too. Europe’s IRIS² program aims to spend the equivalent of about $11 billion to build a broadband network in orbit. And China’s Guowang satellite internet constellation is planned to include more than 10,000 satellites over the coming decade. Analysts estimate China’s Guowang satellite internet system could cost the equivalent of more than $100 billion over its lifetime. That puts it in the same league as the largest infrastructure projects on Earth. This money isn’t chasing a single company or technology. It’s funding a full orbital ecosystem: rockets, satellites, sensors, and the AI that ties them together. The results are already visible here on Earth: - Farmers use orbital imagery to plan irrigation.
- Insurers assess flood and wildfire risk.
- Airlines and cargo fleets reroute using live satellite data.
- Energy firms monitor pipelines, offshore rigs, and power grids.
- Defense agencies track troop movements, missile launches, and maritime activity.
And it all happens in near-real time. According to NASA, the U.S. space sector supports more than 370,000 jobs and contributes more than $140 billion in annual economic output. Industry forecasts suggest those figures could grow dramatically over the next decade as commercial activity in orbit accelerates. In past industrial booms, the biggest fortunes went to folks who recognized the new infrastructure before it became obvious – and before it became indispensable. That’s what makes the space economy theme so exciting right now. A new kind of infrastructure is coming together in orbit. And it’s being built piece by piece by companies that anyone can now invest in. Introducing the FedEx of Low-Earth Orbit I’ll be getting into more details on how to profit from this theme in my regular slot in next Friday’s Daily. Today, I’ll pass along one of my favorite space economy plays – a leading launch company that’s making orbit reliable, repeatable, and routine. From its launch sites in New Zealand and Cape Canaveral, Rocket Lab (RKLB) is steadily becoming the FedEx of low-Earth orbit. Its Electron rocket is compact by orbital-launch standards, but powerful enough to haul up to about 300 kilograms – roughly the weight of a small grand piano – into orbit. And it has completed more than 50 successful missions, carrying satellites for NASA, the U.S. Space Force, and private imaging firms. The company is now scaling up its next launch vehicle, Neutron. It’s designed to carry larger payloads and return to Earth intact, opening the door to higher-volume, lower-cost missions. Each launch builds Rocket Lab’s reputation as the dependable small-rocket provider – a niche that major aerospace firms struggle to serve profitably. But what makes Rocket Lab especially interesting is its vertical integration. The company doesn’t just launch satellites – it also builds them. The company’s Photon is a small spacecraft that houses a customer’s equipment once it’s in orbit – cameras, sensors, radios, whatever is needed. Think of Photon as the chassis, power system, and wiring of a car. Customers bring the parts that make it unique – their cameras, sensors, radios, and scientific instruments. Rocket Lab supplies the propulsion, power, navigation, thermal control, and communications needed to operate in space. This level of standardization saves years of designing and testing. Like the railroad barons who owned both the rails and the rolling stock, Rocket Lab sits on both sides of the transaction – getting you to orbit and powering what happens next. That’s why it’s one of the rare, true, pure-play bets on the space economy. As with all early-stage megatrends, space stocks can be volatile. So as I’ve been covering in these pages over the holidays, conservative position sizing and disciplined exit rules are essential. You also want to diversify so no single stock dominates your portfolio. The good news is Rocket Lab is just one of more than a dozen space economy plays on my radar right now. I’ll be filling you in on some of the others in future updates. So stay tuned… All the best, 
Keith Kaplan
CEO, TradeSmith P.S. You’ll be hearing more about our new “themes” tool soon. We build a lot of world-class tools at TradeSmith – but this one marks a real shift. The biggest money is always made by spotting a market megatrend before the investing crowd piles in. Our new tool is built to do exactly that by tracking what the market itself is signaling in real time. | 
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