AI Summary
5 min readThe Falcon 9 rocket has been the workhorse of the space launch industry for years, but SpaceX plans to retire it by 2028. The catch is that this retirement depends entirely on whether Starship, SpaceX’s much larger successor vehicle, is ready to take over. Lou White put it simply: “It’s more efficient to have 30 people on a bus versus thirty people driving a car.” If Starship isn’t ready, there’s no reason the Falcon 9 can’t keep flying. But the announcement has already sent a jolt through the industry, because customers booking launches for 2028 are booking into an unknown.
The Launch Capacity Crunch
The timing of the potential Falcon 9 retirement is especially bad. As Matt Frankel noted, the New Glenn rocket has been down since May after a launch pad accident, and Vulcan was grounded in February. Meanwhile, launch demand is heating up fast. One program manager from the Space Development Agency recently said that thousands of satellites are scheduled to launch by 2030, and there simply aren’t enough vehicles to launch them even with the current fleet. Removing the Falcon 9—the industry’s most reliable medium-lift rocket—would make the bottleneck worse.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:01) **Space Stocks & The Falcon 9 Retirement** - The hosts introduce the space industry's central tension: SpaceX plans to retire the Falcon 9 in 2028, assuming Starship is ready.
- 2 (06:53) **The Real Bottleneck: Medium-Lift Capacity** - The conversation shifts to the specific gap left by the Falcon 9 and who can fill it.
- 3 (08:09) **The Starship-Dependent Risk** - The hosts detail the biggest risk facing the space industry: almost every business plan relies on Starship.
- 4 (12:03) **Campbell's Dividend Cut: A Cautionary Tale** - The hosts use Campbell's recent dividend cut to discuss false signals of dividend safety.
- 5 (14:09) **Red Flags for Dividend Investors** - The panel lists specific warning signs that a dividend cut may be coming.
- 6 (15:48) **Dividend Stocks on the Watchlist** - The hosts name specific companies where they see dividend risk.
- 7 (20:12) **Mailbag: AI Build-Out in Europe** - The hosts answer a listener's question about hidden gem AI infrastructure plays in Europe.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Space, the final (investing) frontier? Space stocks have garnered copious amounts of investor attention as of late, and much of the success of the space economy hinges on a small handful of rocket companies bringing down the cost of launch. That could get much more complicated if SpaceX sunsets its falcon 9 rocket by 2028 as has been announced. Matt, Lou, and Tyler discuss how the industry can respond to such a change and what opportunities or risks is poses. Plus, the rate of dividend cuts is rising and listener questions
Have a question? Email us; [email protected]
Tyler Crowe, Lou Whiteman, and Matt Frankel discuss:
- SpaceX’s plan to sunset the falcon 9 by 2028
- Who’s ready to step up in the industry
- navigating the minefields of the space industry
- Look out for dividend cuts
- Mailbag: European AI Infrastructure stocks?
Companies discussed: SPCX, RKLB, VOYG, FLY, KRMN, CPB, AMCR, CC, GPMT, ONL, UPS, ASML, SIEGY, SBGSY, PRYMY, CRWV, NBIS
Host: Tyler Crowe
Guests: Lou Whiteman, Matt Frankel
Engineer: Dan Boyd
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