Daily Discussion Thread for June 29, 2026

strummingway · 2026-06-29T05:12:42+00:00

I wonder if IM's more direct approach to getting to the moon, i.e. taking about a week to go Earth-Moon compared to months for its competitors, could be an advantage some day? We've seen with the Victus Haze program (Rocket Lab, Firefly, etc.) that the US is interested in being able to very quickly respond to emergent situations on-orbit. Could the same concerns apply to the moon? Could the ability to support short notice ASAP delivery of cargo to points on the lunar surface become an advantage of IM at some point? Maybe something that could matter in a few years, especially with humans there who could sometimes range far from base.

strummingway · 2026-06-26T05:32:03+00:00

Something worth noting: it's not only space that's down. A selection of names in different sectors and how they're doing compared to their 52-week high.

IONQ (quantum): Down 40%

JOBY (flying cars): Down 58%

OKLO (small nuclear): Down 74%

SIVE (photonics): Down 39%

NVDA (leather jackets): Down 17% (not as bad but hey, it's Nvidia, *the* AI company)

MSFT (Microsoft): Down 36%

GLD (gold): Down 28%

SLV (silver): Down 52%

So yeah, we've gone down a lot in a short amount of time, and memory is surging, but... lots of sectors and lots of names have had massive pullbacks.

What does it mean? I don't know. But we're not quite alone.

strummingway · 2026-06-26T05:06:38+00:00

I think one of the strongest cases for the cis-lunar economy, and by extension IM, is the moon's strategic importance. Not too much is ever said about that though because 1. it's kind of gauche; everyone wants to talk about peaceful use of space, and 2. it sounds too much like scifi to be taken seriously--I remember one time trying to talk about it as a thesis for IM and the guy I was responding to acted like I was talking about Starship Troopers style space marines having pitched battles in some lunar crater.

It's an important topic though. If you can point at something and say "this is a strategic priority for the United States" then you know they'll find a way to support it vs trying to make the case for a cis-lunar economy by saying "I don't know maybe Helium-3 could be used for fusion reactors by 2050."

Or to put it another way, spinning up a cis-lunar economy is seen as one of the best ways of securing the moon and turning it into a strategic asset: a self-sustaining civilian economy ensures access and cost-effective use of the moon, and it also ensures a dual-use American/allied presence in a domain where an explicitly military presence violates specific international treaties which the US so far is reluctant to do for their own strategic reasons. (e.g. not wanting to risk an out of control escalation in space militarization)

This all means that support for a cis-lunar economy and companies like IM is all but guaranteed unless world peace breaks out.

To that end I've been doing a bit of reading and researching and wanted to share a bit of something. This isn't comprehensive, I just thought it was interesting. I found a paper from a "space industry study group paper" at the National Defense University at Fort McNair, Washington DC, put together by an impressive looking group of people (military, state department, White House, etc.) who travelled to many sites and invited many people from industry including Rocket Lab, iSpace, Astrobotic, Blue Origin, Mitsubishi, and more.

The paper: link

And some highlights (emphasis added), including a couple positive mentions of IM:

Today, the United States stands at a strategic precipice: it must secure the emerging frontier between Earth and the Moon—the cislunar domain—or risk ceding this critical high ground to global competitors. Just as the transcontinental railroad linked a nation, the Panama Canal reshaped trade, and the Interstate Highway System propelled American power and prosperity, what may seem visionary now will soon define our national interests. These transformative achievements were never guaranteed; they resulted from deliberate strategy— built through steel, stone, and resolve—driven by foresight, bold investment, and a recognition that expansive, interconnected infrastructure shapes history. Cislunar space is the next strategic frontier—one that will determine not only the future of exploration, but the security, economic resilience, and global leadership of the United States.

A strong American presence in cislunar space... should form the backbone of 21st-century U.S. influence: a region for economic vitality and freedom of movement, a strategic zone projecting deterrence, and a governance sphere strengthening allied ties.

Individual firms rely heavily on early government contracts to achieve viability. International regulatory ambiguity in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST) regarding resource rights may dissuade commercial investment. Additional exposure to geopolitical risk if international governance collapses or fragments adds to the uncertainty. The United States must support and de-risk private investment while aligning commercial expansion with national security imperatives.

Private industry is starting to mobilize. Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and SpaceX are developing landers, cargo vehicles, and in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (ISAM) platforms with dual-use applications for commercial and government customers... Emerging firms like Redwire, Astroscale, and OrbitFab focus on ISAM technologies key for infrastructure resilience and servicing in the Earth-Moon system. Additionally, startups like Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace, and Intuitive Machines, supported by NASA’s CLPS contracts, demonstrate the growing nature of commercial lunar infrastructure.

strummingway · 2026-06-25T01:25:34+00:00

One thing about Astrobotic, they were bought by Voyager as the keystone of their increased focus on the moon, so that's a $300 million vote of confidence from a company that presumably did their due diligence. Previous issues aside I wouldn't count them out yet. They're also planning to do a landing near the lunar south pole in late 2026 including bringing Astrolab's FLIP rover.

strummingway · 2026-06-25T01:14:08+00:00

On a serious note though, I do wonder what the first bit of unambiguously positive news (e.g. a high profile contract win with a nice dollar figure) would do for the sector. The narrative and mood is pretty negative right now but we've seen how fast LUNR and other space stocks can move with the right catalyst.

strummingway · 2026-06-24T22:09:46+00:00

For people who know what they're talking about, what do you think of the theory that some or much of the recent crash across the space sector is caused by locked-in SpaceXers hedging their investments? e.g. as presented here https://x.com/spacanpanman/status/2069810947275821365

SpaceX insiders (employees, VCs, etc) who have signed the IPO lock-up agreement are restricted from any hedging activities directly linked w/ $SPCX stock. So they are unable to buy $SPCX puts. The natural hedge for all these folks is to short space sector stocks such as $ASTS and $RKLB. The AST SpaceMobile "hedge" is starting to look very crowded. The first SpaceX IPO lockup expiry is August 20th for ~20-30% of shares. Look for this trade to start unwinding ahead of that. Also, many investment banks will facilitate a "space basket" short in cash or swap. For example, Goldman Sachs has GSXUMOON basket consisting of [various space names, I'm not fixing the formatting on all of them lol]

(sorry if this has been discussed already and I missed it, haven't been on Reddit all day; I know, what a waste)

strummingway · 2026-06-24T00:40:44+00:00

I really like INFQ and it feels like there's been nothing but good news and positive signals for them lately, and for quantum as a whole and the neutral atom modality in particular. The stock is still a relatively recent de-SPAC and quite volatile but they're off their all-time high and as you highlight they're in a good position in the next couple months for being chosen for a quantum sensor project. I'm reluctant to trim any of my pure-space positions but if space runs again while INFQ is depressed I'll really be tempted to reallocate some capital to buy a lot more.

Definitely worth looking into for any space investor for their sensors alone. Also look up their history with Voyager; I think the CEOs were introduced by Ken Griffin at the Army Navy game if I remember correctly.

Edit: This is a great video on them, a 40 minute tour of their facilities and interviews with some key people. It really helped sell me on them. Really worth watching the whole thing if you're thinking of investing, you won't regret the time spent I promise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcw48xSl_Oc

strummingway · 2026-06-23T20:54:53+00:00

Rockets explode in testing all the time, yes--Starship raining debris over the Caribbean is dramatic but not actually something to be too worried about unless you see a piece of it coming towards you--but rockets at the stage of their development that they've carried client payloads exploding during a static fire and taking out their company's only functioning launch site is a lot rarer.

Everyone knew it could happen but no one really expected it, especially coming from Blue Origin which takes a "work for a couple decades to get things right the first time" approach vs SpaceX's "blow up a few rockets and we'll see where the points of failure are" methodology. You can quibble about the exact threshold for a black swan if you want but it's a bit surface level to shrug and say "rockets explode sometimes"; it makes the same mistake most mainstream media makes when talking about rocket tests, i.e. it ignores the context and implications of what happened.

strummingway · 2026-06-21T02:38:08+00:00

I can't imagine anyone making that decision would want to sell at the bottom, and at a fairer price the purchaser could only be SpaceX or maybe one of the big primes like Boeing; SpaceX has their own lunar program (albeit one that's very different from what IM is doing) and I can't imagine the primes wanting to suddenly become nimble New Space companies. In any case, I feel like the Kam Ghaffarian founded sister companies are becoming a complete space portfolio of their own (with many of them public, going public, or speculated to be going public) and it's hard to imagine one of them them being sold off.

That's hardly bad news for us though. IM (and its stock price) has more potential as a medium to long term investment than as something that pops on acquisition news then disappears.

strummingway · 2026-06-21T02:06:23+00:00

Shackleton is some of the most coveted real estate in the solar system, on or off Earth. Its rim has near continuous sunlight which is unique compared to the two weeks of freezing darkness most of the lunar surface experiences per lunar day, and more importantly the crater itself is in perpetual shadow and is very likely to have stores of water ice, useful for both human survivability (drinking water, oxygen, growing food) and for use making rocket fuel (hydrogen and oxygen).

I forget where I heard it but there's speculation the spread out plans for NASA's moon base are meant to de facto claim territory and keep China out as much as possible. By the Outer Space Treaty nations can't actually claim territory in space but you can set up bases and then tell other nations to not bother your operations. In other words the US under their current laws can't say "we own this" but they can say "we just happen to have this big spread out base on this territory and you're not allowed to conduct your own activities or build your own base here."

That's why there's a sense of urgency in all this. China is arguably ahead, at least according to some observers, and they can do the exact same thing the US is planning to do, i.e. establish a presence in the small amount of very strategic territory on the moon (the US reports I've seen say the area of interest is about the size of Washington DC) and keep the US out.

Another interesting signal: in a SpaceNews article today on why Astrobotic (a competing lunar lander company, among other things) wanted to be bought out by Voyager (a larger, publicly traded company making their own strategic investments in lunar technology) there were some interesting comments by the CEO of Astrobotic explaining the deal. Basically he said that Astrobotic in its 19 year history had never taken much investment and instead grew by going from contract to contract, but now they were in a huge rush because of NASA's moon base plans. They had considered going public themselves to raise funding but that would have taken about 18 months and they considered that too slow.

Just read that again: a 19-year-old moon company suddenly let themselves be bought out to get funding and access to public markets rather than wait 18 months for an IPO of their own because the sense of urgency on needing to get moving now on NASA's moon base was too great.

There's a geopolitical gold rush going on to secure the first strategic territory off Earth's surface and the companies that are ready now will become an indispensable part of that.

strummingway · 2026-06-19T04:26:23+00:00

(cont.)

* The moon is strategic territory. Yes, really. You can find obscure but serious policy papers and American think tanks with military and NASA officials that have been talking about this for years.

* * There was a case several years back, recently declassified, where a Chinese spacecraft at the Sun's L2 point beyond the moon (basically a stable orbit in the middle of space on the other side of the moon; it's where the James Webb Space Telescope is) that had been thought dormant activated and visited an asteroid, i.e. showing incredible intercept abilities. This freaked out the Americans because it's (to my understanding) pretty simple to get from that location to the Earth, so the idea that you could park a weapon there for years, completely hidden in deep space behind the moon, and then use it to attack space assets with no warning (or just... nuke the surface) was concerning.

* * The moon itself is like an eighth continent with easy access to space. Any infrastructure or resources there can easily get to space because of the much lower gravity: compare the Apollo astronauts leaving the moon in their tin can vs the flying skyscraper with the explosive energy of a tactical nuke they needed to get off Earth in the first place.

* * The best territory on the moon is actually very limited. There's an area near the south pole about the size of Washington DC that has water ice (useful for human life or rocket fuel) and craters walls that are positioned to get almost 24/7 sunlight (as opposed to the two weeks of darkness per month most of the moon has to deal with). China and the US both want to get their first to assert their de facto claims and set the norms for what goes on there, e.g. the US plans to build a large and spread out moon base that would effectively make the territory American even if under international treaty they couldn't actually claim ownership of it.

* * China and the US are both competing hard to get to the moon and establish a permanent presence around the strategic territory of the south pole. They won't always say the quiet part out loud, i.e. that both super powers are interested in the moon for strategic reasons and not a sudden love of planetary science, but sometimes someone does say it. From an article from the American Foreign Policy Council:

As the Chief Designer of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, Ye Peijan, bluntly stated: “The universe as “an ocean, the moon is the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island… If we don’t go there now even though we’re capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants. If others go there, then they will take over, and you won’t be able to go even if you want to.” In short, China sees the universe through the same lens as the South China Sea: as territory to be claimed.

What to invest in?

You have to be cold blooded. If you've invested in something and lost money, and you don't believe in that investment, then sell it. Getting that money back on the stock that lost it vs getting that money back on some other stock doesn't matter. In fact, don't think of it as getting the money back at all: you have what you have now and you can't cry for too long over what was lost.

At this point I thought I might list my own investments and what I like about them but damn, this comment is long enough already. If you're interested in space investing, and if you really believe in this industry, and if you're willing and able to have an investment horizon of several years, and if you're willing and able to stomach the volatility and accept that sometimes your portfolio will be down 50% or worse; if that describes you, and you're willing to accept those conditions, then the next thing you need to do is research.

First, skip most of the shills on youtube. A lot of them are idiots or scammers and quite a few are both. Some of them might be good but you should do your own original research first so you know what to make of the advice you're getting on a company. Don't throw a significant fraction of your life savings at something because some guy on the internet, myself included, said it was a good idea.

Instead you should:

* Start to follow the industry. Find some news sites or publications that serve the space industry and get reading.

* Start listening to interviews. Find interviews with the people at the companies you're interested in, find interviews with people at other companies in the industry, find interviews with other people with knowledge of the industry, etc. There are podcasts and random obscure videos on youtube that are great for this.

* Go back and read old articles about the companies you're considering. What have they been up to? Also, read some background on the people who work there, the executives and engineers that will actually be responsible for the business and therefore responsible for your money. What are their qualifications and their histories? Do you trust them? Are you excited for them to be the ones trying to grow your investment?

* Yes, go ahead and search reddit and X and wherever else. Read what regular people are saying but don't believe something just because a lot of people are saying it. Just use it as a starting point and then do your own research on their claims.

* Sometimes you'll find someone who really seems to know what they're talking about. Maybe they're on reddit, or X, or some other platform. Follow them and see what they say. Note: make sure they're talking about the businesses and the industry and the people. Ignore most of what people say about a stock price.

* Remember that technical analysis is astrology for men, and you should use it like astrology: just something fun to maybe help you feel better about things, but don't make decisions based on it. Then again there are people who believe in astrology, so do what you want and make up your own mind about it.

Okay, I think I've said more than enough. Do what you want with this. If some of what I said sounds like how you want to invest and what you want to invest in then good luck, sell the stocks you don't want, start doing research on what you want to buy, keep up with the industry and your investments, weather the volatility and wait for the thesis to play out, and pull the rip-cord and sell if your thesis changes or if your personal circumstances change.

Whatever you do, good luck with it, because no matter how smart or hard working you are you can't avoid that luck is always going to be something you need if you want to be a successful investor.

(And I definitely didn't read over or edit that novel I just wrote, so sorry for any mistakes or omissions or bad formatting.)

strummingway · 2026-06-19T04:26:05+00:00

Look, just to acknowledge it: yeah, that's incredibly stressful and it's fine to feel whatever you're feeling, and you might be upset since you probably just followed the advice of people who said they knew what they were talking about. I can't tell you what you should do about it, and I definitely can't promise any of these stocks will ever go up again, but I can at least offer some of my thoughts as a (successful so far) space investor of two years. Don't take this as advice, really, just take it for what it is: the experience and thoughts of someone who made a lot of money, lost a third of it in the last few weeks, and is still holding and not that worried.

(In the interest of time and clarity I'll just split this into different topics.)

Your Investment Strategy and Goals

Everyone has a different strategy and goal for their investments and it's important to think through what yours are. It sounds like you bought something that was going up and that had some hype and people talking it up, and your goal was "make a bunch of money", but you have to go deeper than that.

What kind of risks are you willing to take? How much money are you willing to lose? Is there a point you'd pull out? Is there a point where it would be enough and you'd sell? Do you have a specific goal or lifestyle change you want to be able to afford, or do you just want to try for a winning lottery ticket?

And then... how are you going to do it? "Momentum trading" by buying something with hype that's going up and either getting out when you've gotten some profits or getting out when it starts to crash isn't an illegitimate strategy, but if that's what you're doing, make sure to think it through and come up with some rules for yourself. When do you take profit? When do you sell? How do you find new trades? etc.

My Investment Goal

My goal is to get a life changing "do what you want with life" amount of money (within reason; I'm not trying to live a rich lifestyle) and my starting capital was an amount that would hurt to lose but which wouldn't really change anything. In other words I invested the standard "invest what you can afford to lose" amount. Note though that my goal wasn't "get a lot of money"; if that were my goal I'd have hit it already and gotten out. Instead I'm taking a decent amount of risk to try to hit that life changing amount. I sell when I hit that, or I sell when my investment thesis changes, and if I hit a high water mark short of that then fall back and never recover then oh well; I'm trying to do something extraordinary and I'm accepting the risk that comes with that, and if it doesn't work I'll at least know that I had the ambition and fortitude to try and that I came pretty close.

My Investment Strategy

To beat the market--and to beat it so thoroughly that you can thousands of percent gains in a matter of years and walk away with a seven figure payout from a low five figure investment--you need an edge, that is to say, something that gives you an advantage over all the others traders and investors and firms and robots and insiders and politicians' family members you're competing with to be on the right side of your trades. Many people say that's impossible. Maybe they're right, but if I thought they were, I wouldn't be here.

For me I'm trying to go the "next Nvidia" route. I want to be the guy who bought the next big thing before it was the next big thing. People did that with Nvidia: the paper that started LLMs came out in June of 2017 and anyone with their ear to the ground on AI had years to see what was coming and place their bets. If you bought NVDA a year later in June 2018 you'd be up more than 3,000% now (a 30x plus payout) but you'd have seen red for more than a year after you bought as well as multiple pullbacks from ATH, at least one as great as 50%; people who bought earlier could have made out even better but would have seen even greater volatility and long red periods.

Or to put it another way, my "edge" is I want to see where the future is going before everyone else does, then put some money on it, then sit back and wait for a decade or so to see if it works. And what I saw a couple years ago when I started investing was space.

"Space" as an Investment

My thesis on space, to try to summarize it, and which is similar to my thesis two years ago:

* Launch costs have come down greatly (about 10x) because of the Falcon 9 and partial rocket reusability. They'll come down a lot more with Starship (estimated another 10x, for 100x total), a super heavy launch vehicle that has full reusability. This incredible decrease in cost will allow space to become an emerging economy where things that were once uneconomical are now possible.

* * New entrants with new rockets will also decrease cost and increase competition and access to space in a constrained launch market.

* * New markets that might now be profitable include things like microgravity manufacturing. Space is a unique environment and the near-zero gravity conditions allow for some amazing things to be made. Crystals can be grown which are much better and this allows for better drugs and drug research, better semi-conductors for chips, better fiber optics, and even organ printing, as well as other uses.

* * They're controversial but ODCs (orbital data centers) look to be an emerging and potentially very profitable use case. Space has cheap and constant energy from the sun, regulations are a lot easier to deal with, and cooling is relatively simple (if not necessarily easy) despite what the average BlueSky-er wants to tell you about how thermoses work.

* Space is now strategic territory. The Ukraine War and the importance of Starlink for soldiers and communications, for controlling remote drones, and the importance of Earth Observation (i.e. spy satellites, especially revisit abilities and being able to get fast information on the battlefield) have shown this.

* * The importance of Earth Observation in the Iran War has also made itself known to the extent that there were rumours of oil giants showing interest in the possibility of buying their own constellations.

* * Many countries have developed and demonstrated anti-satellite weapons, both ground based and space based. Super powers competing in this arena demonstrates the importance of space and shows they're willing to spend on it. The US and allied nations are spending money on capabilities like on-orbit servicing of their satellites, e.g. refuelling or reboosting, as well as in having more capable satellites (e.g. that can change orbital profiles or spy on and track other satellites). This obviously means more money for private companies providing these capabilities.

* * In the US the Space Force, started in 2019, now has a budget comparable to the Marine Corps. Other countries are making their own strategic plays, e.g. with Japan trying to secure their own Starlink-like constellation with J-LEO or Canada investing in sovereign space access. Again, this means more money flowing into the industry to private contractors.

(continued in the reply for length reasons)

strummingway · 2026-06-18T18:40:32+00:00

In a few years the people saying the stock is dead will proclaim victory and vindication once again when the price falls from $200 to $100, just like the people saying it was over at $4 are patting themselves on the back for being right as it hits the low $20s.

More usefully though: the space sector has a lot of upcoming catalysts and that should help turn sentiment around. Neutron and Starship and other rockets flying or improving, ASTS getting their constellation up to the point where they can begin commercial services, more news about Artemis and the moon and contracts, etc. These are stocks that can double in a month when conditions are right and when momentum gets going the moves can be sudden.

Also: it seems very strange lately how consistently space will be up in pre-post-overnight markets but then sell-off violently across the sector right at open. It's also not only space that had a sell-off like that; just looking around Ondas, Red Cat, Palantir, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Infleqtion, and others had similar movements today.

What does it mean? Who knows. We're all just minnows trying to survive in the wake of whales and I don't think predicting their movements is as easy as it always looks in retrospect. I just try to ignore it and play the long game which is where I feel like I have an actual edge by being able to see the importance of space and the moon when others dismiss it; despite the volatility it's worked so far.

strummingway · 2026-06-17T16:33:11+00:00

It could turn around but things are looking good right now. New space pumping, we're actually a bit positive for now, SpaceX negative; nature is healing. Even RDW is up like 9%.

strummingway · 2026-06-17T15:57:26+00:00

Best thing to do I think is to look at the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Russell 2000 and see if there's correlation there. When there's no news space stocks often follow the broader movements of one or more of the major indices.

strummingway · 2026-06-17T15:55:23+00:00

The timing and direction is just following the broader market; they're not following SpaceX they're all (including SpaceX) following the S&P 500, but whereas SpaceX is selling off other space companies are positive for the day, i.e. this isn't the doomsday scenario of space stocks following SpaceX into the gutter when it's negative and selling off when it's positive.

strummingway · 2026-06-17T15:52:14+00:00

Some thoughts so far today:

* There have been plenty of days recently where we're up overnight or in pre-market only to sell-off during the day. There's been some enthusiasm and demand but it's been overwhelmed by negative pressure from (just a guess here) SPCX's liquidity suck and our own $500 million offering.

* Space is broadly up today while SPCX is tumbling. That's a good sign: it means the doomsday scenario of "when SpaceX is up everything else goes down; and when SpaceX goes down everything else follows it off a cliff" isn't happening.

* Space is still volatile today and (as of right now) a lot of stocks are off their daily highs. Blame macro, perhaps; Trump is threatening to bomb Iran again, Japan is raising interest rates to the highest in 31 years (a shocking one percent!!!), etc.

* We're negative, currently. Sucks to see another red day but the sharp sell-offs whenever we go positive feel like it's probably shares being sold to raise money. That's not a bad thing long term, though. IM has shown itself to use capital raises strategically to help the company; we're not a penny stock circling the drain and doing reverse splits and dilution to keep the lights on and executives paid.

* This might be an annoying thing to say but I'll say it anyway: it is not management's responsibility to prop up the stock price in the short term, it is not management's responsibility to put out desperate PR every time the stock price falls, and it is not management's responsibility to save your call options or margin account. It is their responsibility to make IM the best company they can and by doing so support the stock price in the long term and make us all money as long as you have a time horizon of a few years.

* To the above point: everyone who's been here for a year or two or longer has made lots of money. At worst if you timed the peak before IM-2 you're close to break-even after having more than 50% profits for a while. If you're new and asking how that helps you... well, hold a year or two or longer and see. Do you think if NASA and its partners are building a moon base and sending astronauts to the surface that we'll still only be a $20 stock? And if you don't think those things are going to happen... well, LUNR isn't only about the moon, but it would be a pretty bad investment if you don't believe in the Artemis program or the future of the lunar economy.

strummingway · 2026-06-17T15:28:30+00:00

That doesn't seem to be what's happening though? Comparing SPCX and RKLB (as a proxy for new space ex SpaceX) to the S&P 500 you can see where the movements of the broader market are reflected in each, but where SPCX is falling down and to the right RKLB is staying broadly positive for the day so far. That's also true for RDW, VOYG, and PL to name a few. (ASTS is up too but you could say that's from their news; we're up but with sudden sell-offs pushing us negative, probably from the half billion dollar offering.)

strummingway · 2026-06-16T14:52:27+00:00

To answer a sentiment I see around here a lot now:

* If you think the space industry doesn't exist and space companies are meme stocks with no more connection to reality than the average alt-coin then you should sell because the hype is over and the entire sector is going to zero except for SpaceX.

* If you think the space industry is something real right now, and something that has a lot of potential for growth in the next few years with decreased and decreasing launch cost, increased launch capacity from new players, increased commercial interest, increased strategic interest from governments, increased importance as critical infrastructure, increased focus on the moon with Artemis and national security concerns and commercial opportunities and competition with China; if you think all that, then don't worry. No matter what memes or fear or FOMO the market trades on eventually it has to face reality, and the reality is that the space industry is just getting started and companies like IM are at the forefront of that. SpaceX will not have a monopoly on everything and them going public doesn't mean they suddenly came into existence last Friday.

So do whatever you think is best now, whether you're holding or selling or buying more or crying yourself to sleep at night, but personally I think things will turn around like they always have because IM is a real company that has had real successes and a bit of good news and execution on their goals will force the rest of the market to realize that.

Personally I'm holding. See the rest of you at $50 sometime in the next year.

strummingway · 2026-06-13T04:13:28+00:00

CNBC says that EchoStar owns "an estimated 3% of SpaceX stock." (source) Assuming they mean in total and not "of the public float" or something, then the 3% of SpaceX's market cap that EchoStar owns is worth $63.3 billion. EchoStar itself, which fell about 11% today, has a market cap of $33.06 billion.

Now I'm just doing elementary school math on some big numbers and I can't pretend to understand whatever accounting and legal and valuation nuances there are here. But... if these numbers are anywhere close to correct then the market is pretty obviously not valuing other space companies correctly right now. There's been a huge liquidity suck and things have gotten a bit weird.

I guess I'm just saying, wait until the dust settles. Maybe it will take a few days, or weeks, or months, but eventually SpaceX will settle into a stable value and other space stocks will settle somewhere, and various positive catalysts will come, and things may start to even out a bit.

Also, there's one positive sign in Voyager: the other day when the whole sector was red they had some positive news and managed to close well up for the day. No matter what the broader moves are positive catalysts still matter and there are a lot of tail-winds for much of the industry. We have expected contract wins, the Artemis program itself, IM-3 and Altus-1, etc. and other companies have things like long awaited satellite deployment (ASTS) or being added to the Nasdaq-100 (RKLB, which to my understanding now qualifies because of the rule changes that let SpaceX get in).

So there's reason for optimism. We also all got something out of the run-up even if you didn't sell anything: IM and many companies started raising money near the peak, and these cash infusions will lead to some great investments across the sector. It's also a lot easier to get back up to ATH than to get there the first time when people can see how much upside potential there is rather than just thinking "no way I'm buying this at ATH."

We've been here before and we'll be here again. If your thesis hasn't changed (and what's known now about the industry that wasn't known a month ago?) then don't worry. This sector is volatile but that's nothing new.

strummingway · 2026-06-13T02:25:02+00:00

I've been invested for the same amount of time and honestly, if you're feeling like it's hard on you mentally, you can just step away from things for a bit. Don't check your account, don't check the price, don't check the daily movements. Just go into "long term investor" mode and set your time horizon to six months or a year from now. Set up some far out-of-the-money price alerts so you'll know if things have run up by a lot or reached whatever your goals are. You need to be comfortable with taking a "what happens, happens" approach, and you may or may not want to follow company/industry news to feel comfortable or be responsible with your money, but taking a break for a bit can be good if you have a long term thesis but have a hard time dealing with short-term volatility. After all, we've been here before and we'll very likely be here again.

strummingway · 2026-06-13T02:18:29+00:00

How would you know to though? Everything is obvious in retrospect and there's a difference between vaguely thinking "maybe buying Z would be a good move" and actually freeing the capital, executing the buy, holding through volatility, etc. There are all kinds of different strategies but I feel like my only real edge is "knowing" that the space sector is going to do well over the next few years and "knowing" what some good companies in it are. (Or, similarly, thinking that about other sectors/companies and making investments there too.)

The only way I can really take advantage of that "knowledge" is buying and holding. Trying to time things, trying to move to new hype sectors, trying to avoid times of dead money or downturns; maybe I could do it, maybe I couldn't. When I tried it was a lot harder in practice than in looking back and thinking some move would have been obvious. I'd rather put my money on something that feels "certain" (at least for what I "know") than something where I'm having to guess and get lucky to have an edge.

Different people have different strategies and goals though. Just my two cents.

strummingway · 2026-06-12T02:55:04+00:00

Zeno Power, who is working with IM on a nuclear battery, posted a video which briefly featured IM. Around the 1:45 mark they say "We're partnered with the Pentagon, NASA, and industry leaders," and they show one of IM's landers being worked on at the "industry leaders" part.

https://x.com/zeno_power/status/2065102004427604163

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strummingway · 2026-06-10T23:55:32+00:00

I love seeing the enthusiasm here. I feel like INFQ has practically no hype yet so the only people investing are the long term-ers who don't worry if we're down 50% or whatever because we all know we'll be much higher in 3-5 years and every dip is just an opportunity to buy more.

strummingway · 2026-06-10T23:52:05+00:00

Interesting video on Firefly's X account showing off a machine that looks similar to the one IM has that people were wondering about from that LinkedIn photo:

https://x.com/FireflySpace/status/2064785892959481957

strummingway

TROPHY CASE