Space Could Be a $1 Trillion-Dollar Business. Here Are the Stocks to Play It.

SpaceX’s Starship isn’t the only space-related blowup recently. Space stocks, too, have crashed, and while most are never coming back, a couple might be worth buying out of the wreckage.

It wasn’t that long ago when space was the next big thing in the stock market. Two years ago, special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, were all the rage—and space stocks used the vehicles to go public. Companies including Astra Space (ticker: ASTR), which provides launch services; Earth observation company Spire Global (SPIR); and Momentus (MNTS), the FedEx of space, all came public with much fanfare—and now trade for less than a buck. All told, the Procure Space exchange-traded fund (UFO), which counts among its largest holdings Iridium Communications (IRDM) and Viasat (VSAT)—two companies that preceded the SPAC boom—has fallen 36% over the past two years, far worse than the S&P 500’s 1% decline.