Trumps Marsdröm lyfter rymdaktier till nya höjder
Donald Trumps vision om att sätta amerikanska astronauter på Mars har fått rymdaktier att rusa, skriver Barron’s. Rocket Lab, Intuitive Machines och Redwire har haft kursuppgångar på upp mot 50 procent i veckan, medan Boeing och Lockheed Martin också tagit rygg med mindre lyft.
Marknaden räknar med att Elon Musks rymdbolag Space X och andra kommersiella aktörer får en central roll. Som ny Nasa-chef föreslås entreprenören Jared Isaacman – känd för att vara den första privatpersonen som genomfört en rymdpromenad, med just Space X.
Barron'sRocket Lab and Other Space Stocks Are Soaring. Donald Trump Wants to Go to Mars.
President Donald Trump set a bold new goal in his inauguration speech. He wants to go to Mars—and space stocks Rocket Lab USA, Intuitive Machines, Redwire to the moon.
Details are thin, but the aspiration should benefit Elon Musk’s SpaceX and a bevy of publicly traded commercial space stocks.
“Above all, my message to Americans today is that it is time for us to once again act with courage, vigor, and the vitality of history’s greatest civilization,” said Trump in a speech from the Capitol. “We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”
There are a few ways Trump could accomplish planting the flag. He could lean into NASA’s Artemis program, which is designing the rockets, spacecraft, and in-space infrastructure to take America back to the moon and, eventually, to Mars.
That’s likely the priciest option. Government estimates put the total cost of that program over time at close to $100 billion. That’s almost 10 times the amount of money SpaceX has spent over its entire life.
“We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars”
A second way would be to lean into NASA’s push to buy services and technology from third-party providers. That has been a success. SpaceX rockets and spaceships routinely take astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Intuitive Machines’ lunar lander Odysseus rode a SpaceX rocket to the moon in early 2024, marking the first time America landed on the moon in some 50 years.
The commercial option is a chance for SpaceX to win more business. It does billions of dollars in business with the government, for good reason, given that it is the commercial space leader by a long shot. It launched about 140 rockets into orbit in 2024, more than half of the world’s total.
It is also a chance for other companies to win new business from NASA. In midday trading, shares of launch services provider Rocket Lab USA, Intuitive Machines, and space component supplier Redwire gained 30%, 24%, and 51%, respectively. The S&P 500 rose 0.9% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added about 1.2%.
Shares of traditional space companies and NASA suppliers got a small boost, too. Boeing and Lockheed Martin shares were up 2.6% and 3.3%, respectively.
Gains added about $5 billion in market value to the three smaller capitalization space stocks. Gains added about $7 billion to the market value of the two established aerospace and defense players.
Details are thin, but the aspiration should benefit Elon Musk’s SpaceX and a bevy of publicly traded commercial space stocks
Redwire could be moving on more than just Mars. On Monday, the company announced the acquisition of Edge Autonomy, an autonomous technology provider serving the Defense Department. The price is almost $1 billion, paid mainly in Redwire stock.
The commercial option looks more likely than Artemis. Trump has nominated aerospace entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to run NASA. In 2024, he became the first private citizen to do a spacewalk. He did it from a SpaceX Dragon capsule in September.
Trump could also simply lean on Musk. SpaceX intends to make an initial foray to Mars as soon as 2026 using its huge Starship, the largest rocket system built by humans.
Whether NASA, SpaceX via NASA, or SpaceX itself gets to Mars, it would be a feat worth celebrating.