Rocket Lab (RKLB +2.24%) stock jumped 10.5% through 11:15 a.m. ET Wednesday, one day after NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman unveiled the space agency's new $20 billion "Ignition" plan to build a base on the moon.
Rocket Lab itself wasn't named in the plan -- few specific companies were named -- but the plan sounds big enough to encompass and boost the fortunes of quite a few space stocks like Rocket Lab.
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Specifically, Isaacman outlined a three-phase effort culminating in the establishment of a semi-permanently occupied moon base by 2032. Putting astronauts on the moon is a big effort, and one that Rocket Lab's tiny Electron rocket cannot yet support -- but its new and larger Neutron rocket (and future rocket models) might.
Neutron is expected to make its first launch later this year. Whether or not it's proven capable of launching actual astronauts, the rocket should at least be able to send cargo to the moon -- and that's also part of the Ignition plan: Sending robotic cargo landers to the moon, one per month, 30 in all.
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What it means for Rocket Lab stock
Currently, these landers go up atop SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, but once Neutron enters service, the vast amount of work to be done argues in favor of NASA wanting to diversify its contractors -- and Rocket Lab winning cargo contracts.
So that's one reason investors might be excited about investing in Rocket Lab stock today. More broadly, though, the expansive space vision Isaacman outlined yesterday, which goes beyond the moon to explore both nearer projects in Low Earth Orbit, and also farther out -- nuclear-powered spaceships traveling to Mars -- is encouraging the whole space investing community today.
Space may be hard. We're going to do it anyway.
