Reddit Weekly Hot Topics in U.S. Stocks: RKLB/LUNR/ASTS All Decline, Is the Space Sector Still Worth Considering?

Author: David, Deep Tide TechFlow

In Reddit’s stock sub-communities, trending stocks with surging discussion volume aren’t necessarily worth buying—but someone is definitely paying attention, because discussions behind the scenes are usually driven by catalysts.

Our monitoring tools scan daily for changes in discussion volume and sentiment distribution across multiple major stock communities on Reddit, pulling out abnormal signals for further analysis.

Last week, the hot signals mainly pointed to the space sector:

SPCE (Virgin Galactic) logged 2,828 discussions in 24 hours, ranking first on the popularity leaderboard. At the same time, RKLB’s discussion volume rose by 3.3 times, and LUNR (Intuitive Machines) and ASTS (AST SpaceMobile) also appeared frequently in the hot discussion areas.

These four stocks often show up together on Reddit because they are among the few pure-space plays that retail investors can actually buy. In the years before SpaceX went public, these were essentially the substitutes for retail investors to allocate “space-themed” investments.

In today’s Reddit US-stock communities, a common type of discussion is: “Which companies am I missing from my space themed investments,” which to some extent reflects the spillover effect of sentiment around SpaceX, as well as overseas retail investors’ expectation that they can get in early and ride the wave of the space concept.

Judging from the recent price movement of these stocks, the same sector has headed in completely opposite directions: SPCE surged 22% in a single day, while RKLB fell 15%, LUNR fell 13%, and ASTS fell 7%.

So, in the current buzz, SPCE is attracting new attention driven by the “money-making effect,” whereas RKLB/LUNR/ASTS are being discussed as older positions tied to selloff or money-losing anxiety.

If you’re also paying attention to the space sector or already hold related positions, the analysis below on the recent developments of these 4 US stocks may help inform your decisions.

Most space stocks are down—bearish news stacks up

Besides $SPCE, there are at least 3 bearish events behind this round of declines in space stocks, all happening within the same week.

Blue Origin rocket explosion.

Blue Origin is Bezos’s space company. It has a heavy-lift rocket called New Glenn, competing in the same market as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and Rocket Lab’s Neutron currently under development. On May 29, during a static firing test at Cape Canaveral, New Glenn exploded, and the FAA (the US Federal Aviation Administration—required to approve all commercial launches) immediately ordered a halt.

This event hit $ASTS the hardest:

The company plans to send 45–60 satellites into space by the end of the year, and Blue Origin is one of the main launch providers. The suspension directly cuts off a launch channel.

$RKLB itself doesn’t need New Glenn for launches, but its in-development Neutron is a competitor, and the explosion made investors realize that building rockets really can “blow up.” Another space stock, $LUNR , was also affected—more like sector spillover sentiment.

But $SPCE actually benefited. Virgin Galactic is in suborbital space tourism and directly competes with Blue Origin’s New Shepard in terms of business. After New Glenn’s explosion, some market funds flowed out of Blue Origin concept stocks, and part of that money went into SPCE. In addition, SPCE has a relatively smaller market cap, so its price tends to swing more sharply.

SpaceX IPO pricing as early as June 11.

SpaceX submitted its S-1 confidentially in April, targeting a valuation of $1.8 trillion and raising up to $75 billion—potentially the largest IPO in Wall Street history. In recent years, RKLB, LUNR, and ASTS were popular in part because SpaceX wasn’t publicly listed, and these were retail investors’ only space entry point. Now that SpaceX is coming to market, some funds naturally shift from alternatives to make room for SpaceX.

Insiders are selling.

Public data shows that over the past six months, RKLB CEO Peter Beck sold about 2.51 million shares, cashing out roughly $142 million. The president, COO, and chief legal officer have also reduced holdings recently, totaling about $18 million.

Some of it was part of pre-arranged 10b5-1 plans (pre-set trading arrangements for insider compliance), but the timing was near historical highs. Over the past year, RKLB has risen 412%, ASTS has risen 437%, and LUNR has risen 267%, so the profit-taking pressure was already relatively substantial.

Four “space companies”—not doing the same thing

Retail investors tend to treat SPCE, RKLB, LUNR, and ASTS as a single sector to buy and sell together, but the four companies’ businesses, revenue stages, and risk characteristics are completely different.

As shown in the table, RKLB is the only one among the four that has real revenue and accelerating growth.

Looking at first-quarter revenue, RKLB’s revenue grew 63.5% year over year, surpassing analysts’ expectations. LUNR’s numbers look similar, but much of it is driven by this year’s $800 million acquisition of Lanteris, with that acquired revenue included in the total; remove that portion and its own growth isn’t as dramatic—and final revenue still came in 9% below analysts’ forecasts.

For ASTS and SPCE in this chart, you can hardly see the bars. Compared with the first two, their revenue scale is negligible.

RKLB: the only one with accelerating fundamentals—but at $122, it’s not cheap

Rocket Lab is the United States’ second-largest rocket company. Its self-developed Electron small rocket has already completed more than 50 launches, and it also builds satellite platforms and sells space components to NASA, the Department of Defense, and commercial customers. Government and commercial revenue are about evenly split, and its customer base is more diversified than the other three.

The biggest variable currently under development is Neutron, Rocket Lab’s medium-lift rocket. Neutron is positioned as a direct competitor to SpaceX’s Falcon 9. If the first flight succeeds, RKLB would upgrade from a “small launch services provider” to the only publicly listed company besides SpaceX capable of medium-payload launches. The first flight targets Q4 2026, but it has already been postponed twice before (the schedule was adjusted due to a failed first-stage tank test). That means the valuation upside and downside are completely different depending on success versus failure.

Regarding this company’s Q1 financial figures, they are visible in the charts later. Here are three additional things not shown in the tables:

First, of the $2.2 billion in backlog, there is an $816 million SDA (Space Development Agency) satellite contract—Rocket Lab’s largest single order to date—indicating the company is shifting from a launch services provider to a “full-stack space supplier.”

Second, in Q1 it signed 5 Neutron-dedicated launch contracts. Customers had booked before the rocket ever flew, showing strengthening market confidence in Neutron.

Third, CEO Peter Beck cashed out $142 million over the past six months. Although it was conducted under a 10b5-1 plan, the scale of this sell-down is not small by standards in the aerospace industry.

On valuation, the company’s Forward P/S is around 80x. This multiple implicitly assumes three things: Neutron succeeds, defense orders keep expanding, and gross margins continue to expand. If any one of these fails to materialize, the valuation could be difficult to sustain.

Overall, at $122 the market already appears to have priced in a fairly good amount of positive news. If it can return to the $96–$102 range (around the 50-day moving average), the risk-reward would look much better.

Trend outlook: Mildly bullish, but you could wait for a better price. The key catalysts are progress toward the Q4 Neutron maiden flight and the Q2 earnings report on August 6.

The other three: need more catalysts—watch out for “short squeeze” blow-ups

To get a clearer view, we can pull the core financial metrics of these four hot space stocks together:

LUNR: $187 million in revenue—tripled, but mainly from an acquisition

Intuitive Machines helps NASA deliver equipment to the lunar surface and is a core contractor for NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program. The tripled Q1 revenue number looks impressive, but most of it comes from this year’s $800 million acquisition of Lanteris being consolidated into the results. Without that part, the growth rate wouldn’t be as staggering as 199%.

On the other hand, revenue missed expectations by 9%, and EPS was four times worse than expected.

The decisive milestone in the second half is the IM-3 lunar landing mission. IM-1’s lander failed, and IM-2 landed but with limited communications. If IM-3 can achieve a successful soft landing at the lunar south pole, subsequent NASA contracts have a path forward; if it fails, the whole story gets discounted.

A Forward P/S of 6.4x looks relatively cheap, but with a gross margin of only 19%, a low P/S doesn’t necessarily mean undervaluation. The analyst target price is $40.78, and the current $38.21 is already very close.

Trend outlook: Neutral to slightly bearish—wait for the IM-3 result before deciding.

ASTS: the biggest story, but Blue Origin’s shutdown directly throws the script off

AST SpaceMobile is building a satellite-based mobile base-station network, enabling regular phones to connect to satellites for internet without modification. The potential market includes 4 billion unconnected people worldwide. AT&T and Verizon have signed partnership agreements, and the FCC has issued licenses.

The story framework is fine, but the issue may be the execution timeline. To achieve meaningful coverage, the company needs to launch 45–60 BlueBird satellites by year-end, but Blue Origin’s two incidents directly cut off one launch channel.

Satellite analyst Tim Farrar warned that the realistic number of Falcon 9 launches available this year is only 3–5 times. Deutsche Bank downgraded its rating to Hold, and the average analyst target price is $82.24—22% below the current price.

With $3.5 billion in cash, the company is not short on near-term funding, but a Forward P/S of 177x already implies that all satellites are expected to launch on schedule.

Trend outlook: High risk—consider again once Blue Origin’s restart schedule becomes clear.

SPCE: the most-discussed on Reddit—be wary of “short squeeze” mania

Virgin Galactic offers suborbital space tourism tickets at $750k each. After pausing commercial flights in 2024, it focused on developing the Delta spacecraft. In Q3 it plans glide tests, and in Q4 it plans powered tests. Q1 revenue was $1.5 million (not hundreds of millions), and the market cap is $760 million.

The driving force behind this surge is Blue Origin’s competitor incident, the short interest ratio of 23.2% triggering a short squeeze, and retail FOMO. Trading volume reached 12 times the usual level, and volatility circuit breakers were triggered intraday.

RSI is already at 90 (this indicator ranges from 0 to 100; above 70 is considered overbought, and 90 is basically an extreme state...).

Trend outlook: Avoid. There’s no revenue support and no timeline for profitability. The highest Reddit discussion volume doesn’t necessarily mean the highest investment value.

Has it fallen out of the “golden pit”? It’s too early to say

Answering the article’s headline question: We don’t think it’s the golden pit yet, but if it keeps dropping, RKLB may be getting close to a reasonable entry zone.

Blue Origin’s explosion is a real negative (directly impacting ASTS’s launch plans), while SpaceX’s IPO is a short-term liquidity shock (but after listing, sector attention might actually increase). Profit-taking after a big run is healthy on its own.

The sector’s long-term logic hasn’t broken, but in the short term, pricing has moved ahead of fundamentals.

If we must rank these four, RKLB is the only one worth taking seriously: a $2.2 billion order, 43% gross margin, consistent beats. After SpaceX goes public, the scarcity of being the “only listed full-stack space company” would stand out even more.

However, at present, $122 is still probably too expensive; $96–$102 looks more like a reasonable range.

This article is based on publicly available information and independent analysis, for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. Investing involves risks; enter the market cautiously.

Data sources: Yahoo Finance · SEC Filing · TradingView · Reddit/ApeWisdom · Stocktwits · CNBC · TipRanks · Simply Wall St

Trend Research · TideResearch · June 2, 2026

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