Rocket Lab – My First Step into a Potential Category-Defining Space Company

I bought my first shares of Rocket Lab today. This is not the end of my research. It is the beginning. Sometimes you cannot wait until every piece of the puzzle is in place. The market does not give you years to decide. Catalysts can appear and disappear quickly. You either step in when conviction starts forming or you risk standing on the sidelines watching the story unfold without you.

What I see at Rocket Lab right now looks like the early signs of something that can be built to last. There is a level of quality here that reminds me of Palantir in 2020. Back then, the signal was already clear but I did not listen closely enough. I was still anchored to traditional valuation models. I thought in terms of P/E ratios and discounted cash flows. I lacked the imagination to see what a category-defining company looks like before the numbers make sense.

Palantir proved me wrong. The market knew. I learned. Now I weigh qualitative factors as much as I weigh the quantitative. I focus on the product, the moat, the founder DNA, the positioning in the market. From that perspective Rocket Lab checks many of the boxes I now care about most.

Peter Beck – Skin in the Game

Peter Beck is the type of founder I want to back. He is not a corporate caretaker who took over from a predecessor. He built this company from the ground up and still drives the mission. He has real skin in the game. His name and reputation are tied to every success and every failure. When a founder stays in control and remains deeply involved in the engineering and strategic direction of the company, that tells me incentives are aligned.

Beck’s vision is not small. Rocket Lab is not a niche satellite launch service. It is building the infrastructure to be an end-to-end space company. That means manufacturing rockets, producing satellites, operating space systems, and managing the data that flows back to Earth. There are only two companies today that can realistically claim this ambition: SpaceX and Rocket Lab.

Why This Could Be Category-Defining

Category-defining means you are not just competing in the market. You are shaping it. You are the reference point everyone else is measured against. That is the potential here.

Rocket Lab has already moved beyond the small launch niche into medium-lift capabilities with Neutron. The step from Electron to Neutron is not just about larger payloads. It changes the economics of the business and the scope of contracts they can win. Government, defense, and commercial customers are not looking for one-off launches. They want integrated solutions. That is where the moat starts forming.

I see the same pattern I missed with Palantir. Strong founder-led culture. Technical depth. A product that solves real problems. A market that is expanding fast enough to reward the leaders disproportionately. These are the moments where numbers lag behind reality. If you wait for them to catch up you will pay many times more for the same quality.

The Space Economy and the TAM

The total addressable market is massive. The space economy is no longer a side show for defense contractors and billionaires. It is moving into critical infrastructure for communications, defense, climate monitoring, Earth observation, and even manufacturing.

The United States understands that whoever controls space will have leverage over the world below. The government will spend what it takes to ensure leadership here. That creates a powerful tailwind for the companies that can deliver. The budgets are measured in hundreds of billions over the coming decades. Rocket Lab has already won important government contracts. If it proves reliability at scale, the ceiling gets much higher.

A $100 billion market cap for Rocket Lab does not require fantasy. It requires execution. From today’s levels that would be roughly a fivefold return. In a space race where only two companies can truly provide end-to-end capability, that is not a stretch.

Catalysts on the Horizon

There are concrete near-term catalysts. Rocket Lab plans another launch before year-end. Each successful mission adds credibility. The development of Neutron is the big medium-term driver. If the first flights go well and reusability targets are met, the economics improve sharply. More government contracts are likely as the company proves it can scale. There is also potential in their satellite production business, which could grow into a meaningful revenue line independent of launch services.

These are not meme-stock catalysts. They are operational milestones that can compound over time. The stock still carries meme risk because of the sector it is in and the type of investor it attracts. In my view that risk is currently an opportunity. If sentiment swings hard in a positive direction while the fundamentals keep improving, the upside could be significant.

Why I Bought Now

I bought now because waiting for perfect clarity rarely works in these situations. The moat is still forming. The product set is still expanding. The market is still developing. But the combination of founder leadership, technical execution, strategic positioning, and market potential is strong enough to act on.

This is exactly the kind of investment I want to make: a potential category-definer at a stage where the upside is still large and the story is not yet fully priced in. I will keep building my knowledge position alongside my capital position. If the thesis strengthens, I will add. If it weakens, I will exit. But I will not let this be another Palantir where I saw the quality but failed to imagine the scale.

Final Thought

Space is the next great competitive arena. Whoever leads there will shape much of the economic and political reality on Earth. The United States will spend whatever it takes to secure that position. Rocket Lab is one of the very few companies with the capability and ambition to be at the center of it.

I am in early. I am still investigating. But I know what I am looking for. And right now Rocket Lab looks like it could be exactly that.