[TL;DR] I watched rocket launches as a kid and wanted to be an astronaut. SPCX is expensive but still might go up. Buying was an emotional decision: YOLO!
On May 5, 1961 when Alan Shepard took his 15 minute ride into space, starting at 9:34 AM, I was four and at home with Mom and two siblings. At 9:47 AM, February 20, 1962, when John Glenn went to orbit, I was five and in kindergarten, but in the afternoon session. I’m pretty sure Mom had the TV on to both broadcasts and I was able to watch at least some of them. Those early memories are fuzzy but later launches stuck. I recall distinctly a Saturday morning watching one of the Gemini launches in my sisters’ room because one of them was sick. Dad moved a TV into the room and we played on the floor while riding out the “ground holds”. I was around eight at the time. What an adventure, I wanted to be on the top of that rocket launching into space. I also wanted to be a Cowboy and the second baseman for the New York Mets, like Ron Hunt.
When SpaceX announced its IPO my investor instincts kicked in. The share price is as astronomical as the rockets. As a prudent investor buying into an IPO at 95 times revenue didn’t seem a good choice. I spent some time with ChatGPT analyzing the dynamics of the next few months with the smallish float and SPCX being included in the indexes very quickly possibly causing a sneeze. But! Shares will be coming onto the market unusually quickly. They could thread the needle and manage a smooth liftoff. Or! They could blow up like some of last year’s Starship launches or the New Glenn’s gigantic explosion on the test stand last week. The Move-Fast-and-Break-Things ethos that SpaceX brought to rocketry from Silicon Valley requires breaking things.
Peter Diamandis, of XPrize fame, is as optimistic about the future as possible. Here’s his take:
“People are trying to price SpaceX like a normal tech company. It isn’t one. It’s three converging businesses—the launch monopoly, the Starlink cash engine, and an AI frontier lab—wrapped around a single thesis: We’re in the Singularity. You’re not buying revenue. You’re buying into humanity’s future economy.” – Peter Diamandis
In the end, it was an emotional decision. How could I not buy at least a little SpaceX? It’s the premiere company of the space age that we’re so lucky to be living through. Kind of like being in on the first days of the railroads in the 1850s. Or maybe it’s like investing in the Dutch East India Company in 1602.
I put in for two hundred shares, hoping to get at least a few. Kudos to Fidelity for managing what must have been a lot of interest. I ended up with a hundred shares. I’ll hold on to them for a long time.
Below are the rockets I’ve watched take astronauts into space.
