What the heck do elevators have to do with outer space?
More than you might think.
And what does this have to do with investing?
Again, more than you might think.
When standing in the presence of the awe-inspiring New York skyline or any other tall building, it’s easy to forget how those buildings wouldn’t exist without the elevator.
After all, who would walk up 50 flights of stairs every day?
The elevator enabled us to build toward the heavens, creating trillions of dollars’ worth of wealth in the process.
And now, a new innovation is set to launch another building boom toward the heavens. It will also create trillions of deals in wealth, except this time we will construct those new worlds in the sky …
The new space race is both fascinating and filled with potential.
As the space economy develops, some of the related stocks have legitimate 20X, 30X, even 50X upside. What’s coming is not only exciting, but also potentially lifechanging — capable of generating enormous wealth for you and your family.
I want us to grab our share of this wealth. That’s why in the current Investment Opportunities issue, I lay out my big-picture case for investing in the about-to-boom-like-crazy space economy … and why we started what I believe is the world’s best “space investor” portfolio.
It’s also why I joined InvestorPlace CEO Brian Hunt for the premiere episode of InvestorPlace’s podcast, Ahead of the Curve, to dive into the opportunity. It’s a fascinating discussion, and I invite you to give it a listen.
The key to this whole opportunity, which we talk about at the beginning, is a recent gamechanger in space exploration — reusable rockets.
And that takes us right back to the elevator. Imagine a new elevator needing to be built every time someone had to get to the 50th floor of a building in Manhattan.
Crazy, right? The economics are not realistic.
And yet, that’s basically what happened whenever something was sent into space. It required a “new elevator” every single time. Rockets were a one-and-done product that cost billions of dollars.
But that has now changed, which makes the coming space race all the more exciting and potentially lucrative.
Reusable rockets have lowered the cost to launch a satellite into orbit by 70% — from $200 million to about $60 million. Costs should continue to decline and could be as little as $500,000 in the future.
With this ongoing innovation, you might be able to guess which companies are leading the way …
SpaceX, which is Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) founder Elon Musk’s privately held company …
And Blue Origin, which is backed by none other than Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos.
Just yesterday, SpaceX was selected to provide the rocket for a 2023 mission to land a rover on the Moon. Elon Musk’s ultimate goal for SpaceX is to colonize Mars. That’s a big one, but Musk didn’t become who he is by dreaming small.
As I told Brian during the podcast, the video of SpaceX’s reusable rocket is absolutely amazing. You can find it on YouTube here. Watch how it blasts off, comes back down and lands itself perfectly on the platform.
Regardless of which research firm you ask, the space economy is going to be big — to the tune of trillions of dollars. By the end of the Roaring 2020s, Bank of America predicts the space industry will more than triple from today’s value to $1.4 trillion.
To put that number into perspective, the global tourism economy was worth $1.5 trillion (before the pandemic).
But … I believe that number is way below the space economy’s true potential. If a human can reach Mars within the decade, it will be one of the greatest human feats in history. Just think about the possibilities — and even more importantly the space race — that will ensue between nations.
Looking back at the Moon landing in 1969, it cost about $150 billion in today’s dollars for the Apollo program. But what was the economic impact over the years on the global economy through innovation?
Did you know that Black & Decker — now Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE:SWK) — used the information it gathered building tools for NASA to develop the battery-powered tools we take for granted today? An investment in its stock in the early 1970s would be up about 4,000%.
Plantronics (NYSE:PLT) took its work on headsets for the missions … and that led to the mass production of headsets used in most industries.
Many other innovations are also credited to space exploration, including dustbusters, memory foam, artificial limbs, the computer mouse, laptops and athletic shoes. Even the camera phone has its origins in space travel. Just think if all the millennials didn’t have their phone for selfies!
In other words, the total economic impact of the Moon landing and Apollo missions was likely in the trillions of dollars over the decades. The economic impact of the next space race could be even bigger — I’m talking tens of trillions of dollars.
Could space exploration truly be the last frontier for humans on Earth? Could we really construct new worlds in the sky?
The answer looks more and more like yes. Lots of people, including the wealthiest people in the world, believe that space offers the best investment opportunity of the coming decades.
Count me in. I really do expect this next space boom will see us constructing new worlds in the sky … and create trillions of dollars along the way.
On the date of publication, Matthew McCall did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
Matthew McCall left Wall Street to actually help investors — by getting them into the world’s biggest, most revolutionary trends BEFORE anyone else. Click here to see what Matt has up his sleeve now.
