[pavon]

Yeah, that seems grossly unrealistic. They are growing. Neutron is almost complete, and I'd expect significant growth in their launch revenue from that, and their space services are also doing well. So I could easily see their revenue increasing 5x over the next 5 years, maybe 10x. But that market cap can only be justified by the space market as a whole growing 100x, and RL maintaining a significant portion of it with strong competition from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others.

[ElProlactin]

> Neutron is almost complete...

I've made hundreds of thousands of dollars from my early investments in RKLB but this isn't true if by "complete" you mean they have a proven launch vehicle. The company is now targeting late 2026 for Neutron's inaugural flight.

Neutron was announced in 2021. There were hopes for a 2024 first flight. Then it was mid-to-late 2025. Now it's Q4 2026 after a failure related to the stage 1 tank earlier this year.

If anyone can pull off using carbon composite for a launch vehicle of this size, it's RKLB. But nobody has done it before and I think the retail investor base is taking for granted something that is not at all guaranteed. There's much more risk than a lot of people think.

In some ways, RKLB is more like pre-clinical biotech stocks, which usually produce binary outcomes (a drug succeeds or it fails, and the company's fate is based on that). If Neutron works, RKLB gets to execute its grand vision. If it fails, it doesn't. The vision (and valuation) doesn't work without Neutron.

[everfrustrated]

Yes tho I'd argue that Rocket Lab has the finances to easily weather a few more years of Neutron set back if that ends up happening (fingers crossed it doesn't happen). They aren't going bust anytime soon. So I don't see the downside as being zero.

[ElProlactin]

> Yes tho I'd argue that Rocket Lab has the finances to easily weather a few more years of Neutron set back...

The company won't go bankrupt if Neutron is delayed but I disagree with the "easily" part and Iridium complicates the picture. It throws off a lot of cash but comes with a $3.6 billion bridge loan that RKLB will need to deal with in the next year. If they term it out with debt, the leverage goes way up. If they term it out with equity, there's real dilution risk, especially in the scenario where the market prices in Neutron delays (because the stock almost certainly will be lower).

The reality is that Neutron is critical to the RKLB story, and that story is what supports the current valuation. Even after the recent decline from the ~$150 peak, this is a very richly valued company priced for close-to-perfection.

The biggest risk is that carbon composite approach proves not to be viable for a launch vehicle of this size and RKLB has to fundamentally change the design. While I wouldn't have invested in this company if I thought that risk was >50%, it's definitely not as close to 0% as most retail investors seem to believe.

[panick21_]

I'm really interested in the combination of carbon fiber and landing. Dealing with the heat seems challenging.

[boredatoms]

A rocket being nearly complete just means they haven’t started the multi year testing delays when the first couple of launches inevitably fail

[Dylan16807]

I don't follow your math. Let's say we want to target a price to earnings ratio of 20-25. That requires 2.3-3 billion of profit. If they increased their revenue 10x, they'd have 5 billion revenue, which puts them not super far from the target.

So let's say they need to 20x or 30x revenue. That would mean their new size needs to be similar in size to the current space market as a whole. If they have a compelling price, that might require a 5x growth in the space market as a whole? Less than that if you think they're really good at pulling in the new customers? I don't understand where you got 100x.