In September 1962, John F. Kennedy told Americans that “we choose to go to the moon.” Many consider that moment the “starting gun” for the American space race. But in reality, the foundation of that endeavor had been laid years before… and it was most apparent in one sleepy corner of Florida.
In the early 1940s, Brevard County (located approximately 50 miles northeast of Orlando) was known for fishing villages, citrus groves, and not much else.
That all changed in 1948.
That year, the Air Force began its guided missile program at Cape Canaveral. The population surged immediately. Orlando newspapers would compare it with the Florida land boom of the 1920s.
Then, in 1963, NASA purchased approximately 88,000 acres on Merritt Island and broke ground on the Launch Operations Center, which would later be renamed to Kennedy Space Center in 1968.
“Space Coast,” as the area is known today, was being built.
Between 1950 and 1960, the population of Brevard County surged 371%, the fastest in the U.S. at the time. School attendance surged more than 800% between 1950 and 1964 alone. New universities like the Brevard Engineering College (founded in 1958) and the Florida Technological University (founded in 1963) provided a steady pipeline of skilled workers to contribute to the space program.
As you might imagine, all this had an immediate impact on real estate. Facilities directly related to the space program sprang up. But so did entire residential neighborhoods, retail outlets, and everything in between.
This area of Florida is so tightly connected to the American space industry that when the NASA space shuttle program ended in 2011, it had an immediate effect on the property market. The price of a median, single-family home could be had for less than $100,000 that year, down from the then-peak of $250,000 in 2007. The ongoing mortgage crisis of that time, of course, didn’t help things.
All of this matters today because, just like in the 1950s and 1960s, America once again is gearing up for another space race. Just ask the sitting president. Here’s what he said during his inaugural address in January:
The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation – one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations, and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons. And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.
This isn’t just talk…
Back in May, his administration released its fiscal-year 2026 budget, which allocates $1 billion in new investments for Mars-related programs. While that’s a drop in the bucket for the requested $1.7 trillion in fiscal-year 2026 discretionary spending…
It’s still a sign that Trump does indeed want to expand deep-space exploration on a federal level. In which case, he can join the club. The private sector is also eyeing new space-related programs.
Data to the Moon and Back
I’m sure readers are familiar with SpaceX and Elon Musk’s satellite-Internet provider Starlink. But there are other space-related endeavors you should know about.
For instance, companies working with NASA think they have a solution to the power-hungry data centers that are straining America’s grid…
Build data centers on the moon with advanced robots, then beam that data back to Earth.
This isn’t as fanciful as it sounds. In fact, Lonestar Data Holdings, a space startup, has already launched such a program.
I wrote about this
back in January, but it’s summed up simply enough. Lonestar Data landed a data center on the moon months ago, and tests since have shown that it works.
Now, this is a very small operation so far, involving a single data-storage device. So there’s clearly a lot more work to do before the moon becomes a hub of information.
Fully functional, “regular sized” data centers on the moon that can make an actual dent in the world’s growing needs could still be years or even decades away. For investors in space startups, that’s a lot of risk – the exact types of companies we avoid at Wide Moat Research.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t still safely get onboard the space monetization rocket through Earth’s real estate.
Billions of venture capital and taxpayer dollars are once again flowing into Florida’s Space Coast, the epicenter of the new space economy. Moon data-center startups and other space companies, their employees, and their contractors will need:
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Places to operate their businesses
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Warehouses to store their products
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Places to live, shop, eat, and be entertained when they’re off work
All that commercial and residential demand means new manufacturing and industrial facilities. It entails office space for the various service companies that will naturally spring up. Not to mention apartments, houses, hotels, restaurants, and much more.
And behind each one of those physical business locations will, of course, be a real estate owner.
The REITs Buying Into the Space Coast
Hines, a global real estate investment firm, has done its homework on the Brevard County, Florida industrial market. As of the third quarter of 2024, it had just over 330,000 square feet of space under construction, 65% of which was pre-leased, with just a 3% vacancy rate.
Hines seized an opportunity before the new space economy can truly lift off. It recently bought the Titusville Logistics Center, a 250,000-square-foot, Class A industrial property that’s now fully leased to aerospace tenants.
But before you get too excited, Hines is a privately owned company.
For everyday investors, I might be more interested in the ground-lease focused Safehold (SAFE). The firm recently made its own opening move on the Space Coast. Just last month, it recapitalized a multifamily property there that should serve it well.
This is likely just the start of a reinvigorated Florida Space Coast economy. The momentum is already there, and it’s probably not going to slow down anytime soon.
Mere weeks ago, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr reiterated Trump’s messaging from January 20. He said, “The Build America agenda will expand America’s space economy” and even “dominate in orbit.”
I’ll say it again: All this space exploration can’t happen without boots-on-the-ground operations that should profit landlords quite nicely. So while others are making headlines sending data centers to the moon and rockets into space…
I’ll keep my feet firmly planted on Earth, looking for space-focused real estate opportunities I can recommend directly to you.
Regards,
Brad Thomas
Editor, Wide Moat Daily
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