Chapter 1: What is the significance of the Artemis II mission for investors?
Welcome back to The Rundown for another weekend deep dive. Today, we are talking about NASA's return to the moon and what it means for investors. As I'm recording this, four astronauts are flying through space on their way back to Earth after flying around the moon for the first time in over 50 years as part of NASA's Artemis II mission.
And this mission has captured the attention of the world and also investors. Space was already one of the hottest investing sectors, and the Artemis II mission has only added to the hype.
So in today's episode, we'll break down the Artemis II mission, why it matters, the booming space economy, what's driving it, a few space stocks worth knowing about, and what's coming next, including the SpaceX IPO and NASA's plans to actually land astronauts on the moon. We got a great one for you today. Let's dive in.
The last time that humans went anywhere near the moon was December of 1972, but that changed this month. Now, this all started in 2017. NASA began the Artemis program and started planning a return of humans to the moon for new scientific discoveries and economic opportunities. The first Artemis mission was launched back in November of 2022.
It was a 25-day uncrewed mission that traveled around the moon and served as a test for the current Artemis II mission. Fast forward three and a half years, and Artemis II launched on April 1st, sending four astronauts on a 10-day trip around the moon and back. The crew included NASA astronauts Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
The Orion spacecraft carrying the crew went more than a quarter million miles away from Earth, officially breaking the record for the farthest humans have traveled from Earth, last set by Apollo 13 back in 1970. and the crew successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 10th. In fact, I had to pause the recording of this deep dive to watch that splashdown live, which was really cool.
Now, the Artemis II mission didn't land astronauts on the moon. It was a flyby mission, but the information gained from this mission will help NASA prepare for future moon landing missions, which is expected to happen sometime in 2028 as part of the Artemis IV mission. And all this hype around space and future moon landings has caught the attention of Wall Street.
So let's talk about the growing space economy and why it matters for investors. Here's the thing that most people don't realize. Space is already an important part of the global economy. Every time you open up Google Maps or order Uber or- the weather, or even swipe your credit card, you're using space technology like GPS satellites and satellite imagery and satellite communication.
This stuff powers so much of modern life that we don't even think about it anymore. According to the Space Foundation, the global space economy totaled $613 billion in 2025, and nearly 400,000 people are employed in space-related jobs. But this space, no pun intended, is about to get much bigger. The consulting firm McKinsey estimates the space economy could reach $1.8 trillion by 2035.
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Chapter 2: How has the Artemis II mission impacted the space economy?
And a big reason for that is that space launches have gotten so much cheaper. Thanks to companies like SpaceX and the reusable Falcon 9 rockets, the cost of getting a kilogram of payload into orbit has dropped from about $15,000 in 2008 to under $1,000 as of 2025. That's a 95% drop in price in 17 years.
And according to ARK Invest, SpaceX's next generation Starship rocket could bring that cost down to just under $100 per kilogram at scale. So think about what that could mean, because when it costs $15,000 per kilogram, only governments and massive defense contractors could afford to do stuff in space.
But now that the costs are $1,000 per kilogram and getting cheaper every year, suddenly startups can run experiments in orbit and create new businesses and services. This is kind of what happened with the internet. When bandwidth was expensive, only big corporations could afford it.
But when it got cheaper, more and more people came online, and now some of our biggest companies today are internet companies. Space could follow a similar trajectory. Now look, the government will continue to play a key role here.
Government agencies all over the world remain key customers for the core space industry, especially for high-end systems, exploration, defense, and early-stage lunar infrastructure. The Artemis missions are a great example of that. So between the cheaper launches and the growing commercial demand and increased government investment, the space economy is hitting an inflection point.
And there are a handful of publicly traded stocks that are in position to ride this wave. So let's talk about some of those names. You know, there are a bunch of space related stocks out there these days, but we're going to highlight three of them. First up, let's talk about Planet Labs. Planet Labs is a satellite imaging company.
They operate hundreds of satellites in space that spend all day taking high risk pictures of the Earth's surface. When I say high res, I mean, I'm talking about these satellites can identify an object as small as 15 centimeters. You can literally track how a war is developing.
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Chapter 3: What are the key milestones of the Artemis program leading to Artemis II?
You can monitor gold mine production or watch crop health change in real time. And that kind of data has become hot commodity. Defense contractors, intelligence agencies, agricultural companies, and hedge funds are all paying top dollar for it. Planet Labs revenues grew to $244 million last fiscal year, and they have a backlog of about $900 million moving forward.
The company is now also layering in AI on top of its data platform to help clients make faster and smarter decisions based on what the satellites are seeing. So if satellite data continues to become essential for businesses here on Earth, Planet Labs will be a prime spot to take advantage. The stock has already gone up nearly 70% this year. Next up, let's talk about Intuitive Machines.
Intuitive Machines became a household name in the space community after it successfully became the first commercial company to land and operate a spacecraft on the moon back in 2024. They followed that up by landing on the Lunar South Pole, which is the southernmost moon landing in history.
See, Intuitive's focus is on lunar exploration and infrastructure, which is obviously on everyone's mind right now with the Artemis mission. In fact, they're going after NASA's contracts for lunar deployment. Beyond that, they also acquired a satellite manufacturing company that aims to deploy communication satellites around the moon.
So they're trying to like build the internet and communication platform for the moon. The stock has gone up 30% this year and it's up nearly 17% since the Artemis 2 mission launched on April 1st. Finally, let's talk about Firefly Aerospace. Firefly is a direct competitor to Intuitive Machines.
They have their own lunar lander called Blue Ghost, and they've already won a NASA contract for moon missions. Now, what sets Firefly apart is that they also build their own rockets. They have a small launch vehicle called Alpha and a medium-class rocket called Eclipse in development.
Firefly stock has gone up 58% this year, and it's up more than 25% since the Artemis II mission launched on April 1st. Now, those are just three names right there, and I wanna be clear, like, These stocks are speculative. You know, these are small pre-profit companies in an emerging industry. And as with every industry, there are gonna be some winners and many, many losers.
But now let's talk about a company that many people consider to have a monopoly in space, and they're not even publicly traded. yet.
The biggest space event this year might not be this Artemis 2 mission. It might actually be the SpaceX IPO. Elon Musk's space company, SpaceX, confidentially filed for an IPO on April 1st, which was the same day as the Artemis 2 launch, which is kind of poetic. Now, SpaceX is looking to raise $75 billion in the IPO and targeting a valuation north of $1.75 trillion.
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