Jeff Bezos is heading to room. The longtime Amazon CEO announced earlier this month that he intends to board a rocket before long soon after his planned July 5 retirement from an active purpose at the e-commerce huge.

Bezos and his brother will be between the initially travellers his Blue Origin room company takes into house, the starting of what Blue Origin hopes is a beneficial place tourism business enterprise.

It is an remarkable time to be subsequent Blue Origin, and buyers certainly would love to go along for the experience. But Bezos thanks to his Amazon billions won’t require outside the house funding to get Blue Origin airborne, and seems to have no need to acquire the enterprise community.

Even if shopping for Blue Origin shares is out of the concern, there are other approaches for investors to purchase into the growth prospective of house. This is why a few Fool contributors think Maxar Systems (NYSE:MAXR), Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC), and, think it or not, Typical Motors (NYSE:GM) are entitled to thought for all those interested in out-of-this-environment investing.

In three a long time, this highly-priced inventory could be a deal

Prosperous Smith (Maxar Technologies): I have to admit that I have not usually been a supporter of Earth imaging satellite operator and room tech-industrialist Maxar Technologies — but this inventory is starting off to develop on me.

Immediately after reporting its first-quarter 2021 earnings last month, Maxar was punished by traders for its massive loss. At the same time, even though, Maxar created major strides toward repairing its balance sheet in Q1, paying out off $350 million in personal debt and reducing its web debt load to about $2.3 billion. Granted, that’s continue to practically as major as the firm’s very own industry capitalization of $2.9 billion. But it is movement in the right route, and for that the firm warrants some applause.

Also noteworthy is the reality that Maxar is again in good free of charge-hard cash-stream territory. With $20 million in hard cash profit generated about the previous 4 quarters, the organization looks on class to finish in the eco-friendly on no cost income circulation this year (following burning hard cash past calendar year). And analysts who observe the stock see FCF climbing practically 600% following year to $188 million as the organization wraps up the spending essential to construct its new fleet of imaging satellites, then approximately doubling yet again in 2023 to $349 million, in accordance to info from S&P World-wide Sector Intelligence.

What does this suggest for investors? Based on its latest organization value of $5.2 billion, Maxar stock sells for considerably less than 15 periods its possible money profit just two a long time out — and hardly 12 situations fiscal 2023 projected earnings. Which is an appealing rate to fork out to have a person of the main companies in satellite images of Earth — and a key participant in NASA’s Venture Artemis prepare to return to the moon.

A much more “defensive” house decide

Lou Whiteman (Northrop Grumman): No doubt, area is interesting. And the rate of innovation in the sector is accelerating, which is great motive for investors to get fired up.

The trouble is, for all the developments house is even now a comparatively little current market. NASA’s once-a-year price range sounds remarkable at $20 billion-in addition, but the component that goes to contractors is hardly bigger than the cost of just one of the Pentagon’s aircraft carriers. Private need for area services, from tourism to satellites, is constant but niche. There is only so much a pure-participate in room corporation can be anticipated to develop until some thing drastically improvements in the current market.

Northrop Grumman features a most effective-in-class place portfolio inside of a large protection arsenal. The organization has a long historical past as a federal government house chief that was boosted by its 2018 acquisition of Orbital ATK. Currently Northrop’s room business is associated in launch and propulsion methods, human spaceflight, professional satellites and payloads, and a huge leading-secret part.

Northrop Grumman’s NOC RapidStar-2 national protection satellite. Picture source: Northrop Grumman.

Space has been a standout performer inside Northrop. The room company grew revenue by 29% in the most new quarter, doubling its backlog in 2020. Overall area generated $2.5 billion in revenue in the quarter, accounting for about 27% of Northrop’s full profits.

In Northrop investors get not just an impressive area franchise, but also Pentagon priorities together with an $85 billion software to exchange the nation’s intercontinental ballistic missile and a individual $50 billion franchise to acquire the new B-21 bomber. Northrop’s aerospace and house chops must also assistance the enterprise win a rising share of contracts relevant to the advancement of hypersonics, missiles capable of traveling far more than five periods the speed of seem.

Northrop Grumman provides traders a way to get into an industry-top area portfolio and have the gains of a enterprise with a $80 billion backlog of orders and a 1.7% dividend generate. All of that at a reasonable 13 moments earnings and 1.6 situations sales. 

Specified the challenges and uncertainty of pure-play area investments, it is one of the more interesting means to acquire into the modern-day place race.

How this outdated automaker could turn out to be a important room provider

John Rosevear (Typical Motors): GM is many points, but is it really a room company?

The truth of the matter is, whilst GM has performed some exciting roles in America’s area-exploration attempts over the several years, GM isn’t genuinely a area firm — at least, not nevertheless.

But the car industry’s pivot to electrical and related automobiles has led GM to establish some exciting new traces of business enterprise, and you can find at least 1 that could participate in a significant purpose in efforts to investigate and commercialize house in the decades to come: Gas cells.

Gasoline cells are equipment that chemically transform the vitality in hydrogen fuel to electric power, emitting only drinking water. They have been around for many years — and GM has been tinkering with them for about 50 decades — but it really is only just lately that efforts by GM and other people to make them commercially feasible have commenced to bear fruit. 

The world’s very first electrical car or truck driven by a hydrogen gas cell was GM’s Electrovan, created in 1966. Impression source: Common Motors.

GM’s “Hydrotec” fuel-mobile methods use gas cells created by a joint venture between GM and Honda Motor. (Honda uses the gasoline cells in its very own separate line of merchandise.) Just in the final several months, GM has struck bargains to create Hydrotec gas-mobile programs to power heavy vehicles with Nikola and Navistar Intercontinental, for railroad locomotives with Wabtec, and for aviation with German aerospace provider Liebherr-Aerospace. 

Could room be up coming? I think it’s likely. After all, GM also lately declared a offer to partner with Lockheed Martin on a new lunar rover — 50 many years following GM served to create the initial lunar rover. 

Additional broadly, GM’s unfolding strategy to become a main fuel-cell provider will provide an intriguing new stream of earnings that isn’t really dependent on the ups and downs of worldwide car profits. As GM moves outside of automobiles and trucks to turn into a provider of mobility-relevant companies and products (like fuel cells), its bottom line and its inventory selling price the two look likely to advantage.