7800 Satellites, 10 Missiles, And $71 Billion up for Grabs

This year marks the sixth year since the U.S. Space Force was established, and it still has fewer people in uniform than the New York City Police Department.

Yet, last month they asked Congress for $71.3 billion.

Let that sit for a second, because the comparison here isn’t some gimmick… this is the whole story.

In 2025, the Space Force was handed $31.9 billion. 

So, we’re essentially talking about more than doubling a military branch’s budget in a single cycle. 

In fact, research and development alone will run past $40 billion. Yes, dear reader, that’s more than the entire 2025 budget spent on R&D by itself.

Of course, procurement has jumped to $19 billion, which is five times what it requested a year ago.

For the record, that’s the fastest peacetime funding increase any American military branch has seen in seventy-five years.

And I’d wager you can’t remember a single televised argument about it.

There isn’t a single dissent on either side of the political aisle in the halls of Congress. 

Granted, a branch that’s so small can’t physically spend money on itself. After all, personnel accounts for only $1.9 billion of the request.

That’s roughly three cents to every dollar  — call it three cents on the dollar.

The rest of that cash horde won’t stay in the building. 

No, the truth is that this money is going right out the door to a very specific set of players. 

Follow that cash trail and you’ll quickly realize the opportunity at stake for individual investors like us. 

So what does $71 billion actually get them?

For starters, it’ll be the foundation for the Golden Dome, and these are merely theoretical numbers that we’re looking at. 

The Congressional Budget Office put the twenty-year cost at $1.2 trillion, with just over $1 trillion of that in acquisition alone.

But forget the trillion-dollar number for a moment…

What’s really going to make you sit up and take notice is that the architecture the CBO modeled would require roughly 7,800 satellites in low-Earth orbit.

Mind you, these satellites would be put in place to defeat less than a dozen intercontinental missiles.

Ten, to be exact. 

Also don’t forget that someone has to build 7,800 spacecraft.

And it won’t be the Space Force (again, which only has about 13,200 people in uniform by the end of next year. They’re not welding anything. They’re writing purchase orders.

You can bet the machinery for that is already humming, too.

The Missile Defense Agency’s main contract vehicle carries a ceiling of $151 billion, and only about $23 billion of it has been allocated so far. 

In fact, Space Systems Command recently selected fourteen companies to compete for task orders worth up to $1.8 billion, with another $2.5 billion in next year’s request specifically earmarked for commercial services and off-the-shelf capability.

You see what’s happening there, don’t you?

The Pentagon has stopped defaulting to the five big whales and is writing checks the smaller specialists can capitalize on. 

Now let’s put it all together, shall we?

Last June, SpaceX priced the largest IPO in history, opening around $161 per share and running to $201. 

Unfortunately, it only took a matter of weeks and eight straight sessions underwater before the stock was back below its offer price. 

As you’d expect, every supplier that had run up 50% to 100% in anticipation got dragged down right along with it; even one of the best-positioned names in the sector fell roughly 30% in a single month.

So what broke?

Nothing.

Not one contract was cancelled, nor did we see any backlogs shrink, and there certainly weren’t any programs that suddenly lost funding. 

All that took place was a crowded trade unwinding, with thematic selling pulling the whole sector down like it always does. 

Meanwhile, the Pentagon kept signing the checks. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that valuations didn’t get silly ahead of the listing. 

Of course they did.

What I’m saying is that the market’s sentiment was repriced while contracts persisted. 

And it’s that gap that gives us the opportunity at hand. 

Keep in mind, the defense side is the smaller half of this story.

Roughly 78% of the global space economy today is commercial, not military.

That means that for every dollar the Pentagon puts in orbit, the commercial market is spending better than three, with more than a few credible forecasts converging on $1 trillion somewhere between 2032 and 2034… the more aggressive projections put the figure close to $2 trillion. 

That’s also not to mention the fact that every mega-constellation up there needs replacing on a three-to-five-year cycle.

We’re not looking at a simple market boom; this looks more like a treadmill running on a steady incline. 

Right now, the entire market is wondering whether or not SpaceX is worth two trillion dollars.

I say let them have their arguments, because the money feeding it isn’t going away. 

The real work for us isn’t valuing the rocket company, but rather figuring out where $71 billion goes AFTER it leaves the building.

Once we do, the list suddenly becomes very short. 

It’s precisely the situation that my colleague, Jason Simpkins, has been uncovering for years, to the benefit of his readers. 

Truth is, he’s been tracking this build-out before the Space Force existed, and recently identified exactly where these purchase orders are going to land.

I strongly recommend you check out the details on this opportunity for yourself, absolutely free.