The New Final Frontier
An era of $multi-trillion expansion.
This is the fourth in our series about Massive’s focus in 2025. To see more of our thoughts and follow along, please subscribe.
Our world has entered a new age of meteoric development and expansion beyond Earth’s atmosphere - one with massive implications for global commercial endeavors and our nation’s government interests.
The Railroad to the Stars
Recall the transformative impact of 19th-century railroads: they connected vast territories, enabled resource extraction, and fueled unprecedented economic growth. Just as the growth of the railroad unlocked economic value from the American West that was unfathomable at the time, a new "railway" to space, driven by the SpaceX Falcon rocket, is poised to trigger an exponential economic expansion skyward lowering the cost of access, opening up new opportunities for commercial ventures, and laying the groundwork for a new economic frontier.
With the inevitability of heavy launch vehicles like SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn providing new capabilities to deploy massive payloads to space at increased frequency and up to 100x lower launch costs, the railway to space will quickly transform into a super highway.
This super highway will open the door to new infrastructure development from low Earth orbit all the way to the lunar surface and beyond. These initiatives include innovative communications solutions, long-term habitation, facilities for scientific research, pharmaceutical and composite manufacturing at scale, infrastructure support services like re-fueling and payload delivery, and resource mining for fuel generation to provide a stepping stone to deeper space exploration. These new commercial and government interests will forge a $1.8 trillion market by 2035 - almost triple its current size - and continue to grow exponentially. We are truly on the cusp of a “New Space” era.
The Strategic High Ground Will Drive Economic Expansion
Similar to the strategic importance of key rail hubs and why President Eisenhower funded the National Interstate Highway System, the U.S. government views the multi-layered space realm as a critical domain for national security. As General Michael Guetlein of the U.S. Space Force has indicated, "station keeping" in orbit - maintaining a continuous and strategic presence - is vital to keeping pace with competitors like China and Russia. China launched its own space station in 2021 and has retained a permanent human presence there ever since (a fact very rarely covered by the US media), and Russia has pulled out of the ISS partnership with plans to launch its own station. The United States and its allies cannot risk ceding this ‘strategic high ground’ and will prioritize budget and accelerate government/commercial partnerships to regain a leadership position. These initiatives will act as a springboard for massive commercial innovation and opportunities.
Owning a Piece of Space
As this new economy emerges, investment opportunities will be extensive. However, understanding the gatekeepers, technical hurdles, commercial milestones and capital needs to achieve operational maturity is critical. There are major differences between government development grants and LOIs from other startups versus real commercial traction, test-rig data, and actual flight provenance.
The “New Space” ecosystem is in its infancy despite the vast number of companies building solutions for launch, in-space service, human habitation, earth observation, communications and much more. Massive views this substantial opportunity as a multi-layered system where infrastructure underpins higher order applications and products over time.
That’s exactly why an experience-based inflection point mentality is needed to inform investment decisions in key companies driving major infrastructure growth. At Massive, we will continue to lean heavily on this mentality as we look for market-leading companies driving innovations that will form the building blocks of this vast ecosystem.
Areas we are interested in:
Infrastructure for communications, building, and maintaining assets in orbit or on other planetary bodies.
Novel energy solutions that will enable sustained and reliable power for human habitation, commercial operations, and exploration.
Advanced systems that improve operational security, reliability, and mission capability.
Key Portfolio Investments:
SpaceX - Repeatable and affordable space flight
OrbitFab - Building gas stations in space
Lunar Outpost - Advanced spacecraft and robotics solutions
And others to be announced soon…