January 30, 2026
Backdoor Profit Opportunity from the New NASA Chief
Dear Subscriber,
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| By Michael A. Robinson |
Even in the daring-do world of NASA, Jared Isaacman stands out.
For starters, he’s 42 — making him the youngest person ever to run the storied space agency.
He’s also a tech entrepreneur and the first billionaire to take the helm at NASA.
But what truly separates Isaacman isn’t his résumé on Earth. It’s what he’s done above it.
Before becoming NASA administrator just last month, Isaacman didn’t just bankroll space missions — he flew on them.
He commanded the first all-civilian orbital spaceflight.
He’s the tall one.
Chris Graebe wrote about this in September 2024.
Later, he became the first private citizen to perform a spacewalk.
That experience gives him a perspective few NASA leaders can claim.
That background will come in handy as the U.S. prepares to return to the Moon and gears up for manned missions to Mars.
In other words, the New Space Race that McKinsey says is worth $1.8 trillion is an unstoppable trend.
And in a moment, I’ll reveal a leader who’s on pace to double its earnings in about three years …
A Busy Space Program
Isaacman is running an agency that is the busiest it’s ever been.
Launch activity has surged to hundreds a year.
Much of that increased cadence is coming from the private sector.
In that regard, Isaacman brings a rare and valuable insight.
Like SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos, he’s a billionaire space enthusiast who understands both the technical challenges of spaceflight and the business realities behind it.
Private-sector partnerships now sit at the center of NASA’s strategy, with SpaceX leading the way.
The company handles crew transport to the International Space Station and is building the lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis program — the backbone of America’s return to the Moon.
This shift has fundamentally changed how NASA operates.
Instead of doing everything in-house, the agency now relies on commercial partners to move faster, lower costs and scale missions in ways that simply weren’t possible a decade ago.
Make no mistake, though — Isaacman isn’t just a space evangelist. He’s also a proven business leader.
He founded Shift4 Payments (FOUR) at just 16 years old, building it into a financial-technology powerhouse that now processes hundreds of billions of dollars in transactions each year.
That background matters as NASA manages complex contracts, massive budgets and an increasingly commercial space ecosystem.
Isaacman isn’t learning how to run a large, fast-moving organization on the job — he’s been doing it for decades.
In short, he’s overseeing a space program that is more active, more commercial and more consequential than ever before.
Blasting Off from Sea
Just look at the impact SpaceX is having.
Last year, it completed roughly 165 orbital launches.
That’s more than any other space firm in the world and more than half of all global orbital missions.
SpaceX deployed more than 2,500 Starlink satellites in the process, making it another record year for space activity.
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That pace has created a new bottleneck: capacity.
Traditional land-based launch sites are booked out years in advance.
Building new ones is slow, expensive and politically complicated.
There are only so many suitable coastal locations, and demand is quickly overwhelming supply.
That’s why more companies are turning to the ocean.
I wrote about this once back in September last year.
In short, mobile and fixed sea-based launch platforms offer flexibility.
They can be positioned near the equator, where Earth’s rotation provides a natural boost.
That allows rockets to carry heavier payloads using less fuel — a meaningful advantage as launch volumes rise.
But this story is so much bigger than sea-to-space launches …
A Backend Play
That brings me to a company that has been quietly positioning itself for this moment since 1957 — the same year Sputnik ignited the original space race.
Heico (HEI) began as a precision-engineered parts supplier to the commercial and military aviation markets.
Over time, it pursued a simple but powerful strategy: acquire niche manufacturers that specialize in high-reliability components — parts that absolutely cannot fail.
That approach has turned Heico into a behind-the-scenes powerhouse across aerospace, defense and space-related systems.
Today, Heico supplies components to many of the major — and minor — players in the space industry.
Think of it as a diversified backend play on the New Space Race.
One stock, dozens of exposure points.
When NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars in 2021, four Heico subsidiaries supplied parts used on the platform.
Those components are still operating today, millions of miles from Earth.
Heico’s reach extends beyond rockets and rovers.
Its subsidiaries are also leaders in electro-optics and laser-based components — technologies used in drones, autonomous systems, advanced sensors and next-generation defense platforms.
One of the most promising areas is laser communications, which allows data to move at the speed of light with minimal delay.
When you’re coordinating systems across vast distances — whether in orbit or at sea — that kind of real-time communication becomes invaluable.
As space missions shift from short-term exploration to long-term presence, demand for rugged, space-ready equipment is only increasing.
A Great ’Twofer’
Heico’s opportunity doesn’t stop in orbit.
The company has long been a key supplier to the commercial and military aircraft markets.
Global air travel is expected to grow for decades, and demand for new aircraft continues to outpace supply.
At the same time, militaries around the world are investing heavily in drones — in the air, at sea and below the surface.
The modern battlefield is networked and data-driven, and many of the precision systems that make that possible come from Heico subsidiaries.
Now let’s talk numbers.
Over the past three years, it has posted average earnings growth of 24%.
At that pace, earnings would roughly double over the next three years.
HEI is a great way to gain exposure to the New Space Race and modern defense spending.
This is a firm that doesn’t need to bet on any single rocket, satellite or program to win.
We profit from the New Space Race’s unstoppable trend with a stock built for the long haul.
Best,
Michael A. Robinson
P.S. My Disruptors & Dominators readers have had HEI in their portfolio for a while now. And they are up 120%, as I write.
And while HEI still has plenty of growth ahead of it, I recently put together another list of breakout tech superstars.
Here’s the best part: AI giant Nvidia can’t live without them. Check that out here.
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