The Kármán Line — Special Edition

Big Bang

The Single Innovation That Unlocked a $630 Billion Industry… and We're Just Getting Started

In 2010, it cost $10,000 to send one kilogram of payload to low Earth orbit.

Today, that number is $2,500. And if SpaceX's Starship performs as designed, it could fall to just $10 per kilogram within this decade.

That isn't a small improvement… That is a 99.9% cost reduction. In an industry that had barely moved in fifty years.

Let me explain why that number changes everything…

The cost of getting to space wasn't just expensive. It was a wall. A wall that kept entrepreneurs, startups, and investors from building real businesses above the atmosphere. Every dollar spent on a traditional rocket was a dollar that couldn't go toward the actual product — the satellites, the sensors, the services that generate revenue.

When SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 booster upright for the first time in December 2015, they didn't just build a better rocket. They rebuilt the entire economic model of the space industry. Sound familiar? It's the same thing that happened when container shipping collapsed costs in the 1960s… and restructured the entire global economy around cheaper logistics. Walmart. Modern electronics. Global supply chains. All of it built on cheaper movement of goods.

The same platform shift is happening in space right now. Just faster.

Cheaper access to orbit has already produced one $11.4 billion revenue business in Starlink, which is on pace to hit $18–20 billion in 2026. It has launched a $6 billion in-orbit servicing market. It is funding over $2.6 billion in NASA commercial lunar contracts. And it is enabling the first serious demonstrations of space-based solar power — a technology that could one day beam clean energy from orbit to Earth, around the clock, regardless of weather.

Five technologies. One foundational innovation underneath all of them. And the clock is ticking on the easy part of this opportunity.

Now, I know what you're thinking… "If this is such a big deal, why hasn't it shown up in my portfolio yet?"

Because the financial media runs on headlines, not on infrastructure. Nobody writes a breathless story about a booster landing on a drone ship. But those landings are what made the $630 billion space economy possible — and they're what's pushing Morgan Stanley's $1 trillion projection for the early 2030s within reach.

But here's what matters most to you and me right now…

We're still in the early innings of this game. The global space economy was $420 billion just two years ago. It crossed $630 billion last year. Each technology described in this issue is still young — still moving from government-funded experiment to recurring commercial revenue. That's not a reason to be scared. That's a reason to pay attention before the rest of the market catches up.

The window is open. But history says windows like this don't stay open forever.

Flyby

Launch Market

The Monopoly Is Breaking. Three New Reusable Rockets Are Targeting Falcon 9's Market.

SpaceX commands more than 60% of the global orbital launch market today — and that near-monopoly has been the single most important fact in commercial space for the last five years. But by the end of 2026, Rocket Lab's Neutron (13 metric tons to LEO, targeting $50 million per launch) is slated for its debut, Relativity Space's Terran R is preparing for its first flights, and Blue Origin's New Glenn already flew its first mission in January 2025. For investors, this isn't a threat to the space economy… it's a sign of one maturing. Competition drives launch cadence up and prices down. Both outcomes are good for every satellite, service, and station waiting its turn to orbit.

Connectivity

Starlink Hit 11.8 Million Subscribers — and Revenue Is Growing Even Faster Than the Subscriber Count

Starlink posted $11.4 billion in 2025 revenue with $4.4 billion in operating profit — and as of April 2026, it counts 11.8 million subscribers across 150+ countries, with analysts projecting $18–20 billion in 2026 revenue. Now Amazon's Kuiper constellation is entering commercial deployment, setting up the first real competition in satellite broadband. And here's what that competition actually means for the broader market… both companies are simultaneously validating the same thesis at the same time, with enormous capital behind them. The satellite internet market is projected to reach $22.6 billion by 2030. Two of the world's best-funded organizations racing for that prize is good news for component makers, ground equipment suppliers, and the infrastructure players building around them.

In-Orbit Services

The $6 Billion Market Most Space Investors Have Never Heard Of

There are more than 7,000 active satellites in orbit today. Most of them will eventually run low on fuel, drift off station, or need repositioning. The in-orbit servicing market — companies that extend, repair, and eventually refuel satellites in orbit — sits at $6.3 billion today and is projected to reach $18.4 billion by 2035, growing at 11.25% annually. Northrop Grumman's Mission Extension Vehicle has already proven the concept commercially, docking with and extending the life of Intelsat satellites in geostationary orbit. Astroscale is advancing active debris removal. The economics here are simple… it costs far less to service a satellite than to launch a new one. As orbital real estate grows more valuable, the companies that service it become indispensable.

On the Horizon

The Clean Energy Technology Being Built in Orbit That Almost Nobody Is Talking About Yet

In early 2023, Caltech's Space Solar Power Demonstrator beamed microwave energy wirelessly from orbit to Earth for the very first time in history.

You probably didn't see it in your financial news feed. Most people didn't. It was a small experiment — the kind of milestone that shows up in a science journal and nowhere near your Bloomberg terminal.

But here's why it belongs on your radar right now…

Space-based solar power works like this: place enormous solar arrays in orbit, where sunlight is available 24 hours a day with zero clouds, zero atmosphere blocking it, and zero night. Convert that energy to microwaves. Beam it to receiving stations on Earth. Convert it back to electricity. Clean, baseload, 24/7 renewable energy from orbit — the one thing terrestrial solar and wind can never deliver on their own.

Japan's JAXA has been researching this concept for decades and is now running demonstration satellites. ESA's SOLARIS program is funding it at the European level. China has announced plans for a kilometre-scale demonstration array by 2028. And the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has been quietly running its own wireless power transmission tests for years — mostly out of view.

This isn't a technology you can invest in directly today. The commercial economics of space solar still depend on dramatically lower launch costs — which is exactly why the reusability revolution we covered above is its essential prerequisite. As Starship approaches its theoretical cost floor, space solar stops being a physics experiment and starts becoming a business case.

Watch the next 12 to 24 months of demonstration missions closely. Each one narrows the gap between science project and commercial contract. When the cost of getting large payloads to orbit falls far enough… space solar doesn't just become possible. It becomes inevitable.

Deep Space

What Is the Lunar Economy — and Why Is $170 Billion Being Bet on It?

A lunar economy sounds like the premise of a science fiction novel. But it's already being funded like a real business.

NASA's CLPS program — the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative — has awarded more than $2.6 billion in contracts to 14 commercial vendors. Intuitive Machines has already landed on the moon. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander touched down in early 2025. These aren't government science missions. They are commercial deliveries — private companies charging to carry payloads to the lunar surface the same way FedEx charges to carry packages to your front door.

And the market is just getting started.

Let me explain what the lunar economy actually is…

Think of the moon as a continent no one has ever done business on. It has resources — water ice at the poles that can be converted into rocket fuel, rare earth elements in its crust, helium-3 that could one day power fusion reactors. It has a strategic position — sitting 239,000 miles from Earth, the moon is the natural waypoint for all deep space operations. And it has real estate — specifically the south polar region, where water ice concentrates, which is already being eyed the way oil companies eyed the Permian Basin in 1950.

The lunar economy has three distinct layers. First: transportation — getting payloads and eventually people to the surface reliably and cheaply. Second: resource utilization — manufacturing rocket fuel from lunar ice so that future missions don't need to haul it all the way from Earth. Third: infrastructure — power systems, communications relays, and navigation networks that make sustained operations possible over time.

PwC projects the lunar economy could surpass $170 billion by 2040. NASA's Artemis III crewed landing is currently targeted for 2026, with SpaceX holding a $4 billion Human Landing System contract and Blue Origin holding a $3.4 billion contract alongside it. The infrastructure for a permanent human presence on the moon is being contracted, funded, and built right now.

This isn't a moonshot bet in the speculative sense. It's a market being built methodically, contract by contract, mission by mission, with real government money funding the first infrastructure wave — and private capital beginning to follow close behind.

The investors who understand this now will have a significant advantage over those who discover it after the first crewed Artemis landing makes front pages around the world.

Remember… the space economy doesn't need to become a trillion-dollar market tomorrow for you to profit from it. It just needs to keep doing what it's already doing — growing at 7–11% per year, attracting institutional capital, and graduating one sector at a time from experiment to business. The five technologies in this issue are the engine of that growth. The infrastructure is being built right now, mostly out of view. The question isn't whether the space economy gets there. The question is whether you're positioned when it does.