Michael Brandmeyer, co-CIO of Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) Asset Management’s External Investing Group, has outlined a sweeping vision for how the space economy will reshape global business over the next quarter-century.
Speaking on Goldman Sachs’ Exchanges podcast episode titled “The Growth of the Space Industry,” Brandmeyer delivered a prediction that cuts against conventional thinking about space as a niche investment category.
His central argument was direct: “I think by 2050, the biggest companies operating in space won’t be space companies. I think space is going to be fundamental to almost every business.”
Brandmeyer grounded his forecast in a historical parallel that investors will find familiar, drawing a direct line to the commercialization of the internet two decades ago.
“It’s very similar to what happened with the internet in the early 2000s. You had internet companies, and now the internet is fundamental to every company. I think that’s what we’ll see by 2050.”
If that analogy holds, the largest beneficiaries of orbital infrastructure will ultimately resemble today’s cloud, logistics, pharmaceutical, and industrial giants rather than pure-play rocket builders or launch operators.
That framing has direct implications for portfolio construction, suggesting investors widen their aperture beyond dedicated space stocks toward companies across multiple sectors that are beginning to use orbit as a utility layer.
A guest on the episode outlined a concrete near-term roadmap, noting that new commercial space station modules are expected within “the next couple of years,” with early applications spanning pharmaceutical research, GPU testing, and zero-gravity manufacturing.
A permanent lunar base was described as “a decade plus off,” while a crewed Mars landing falls into the “2050 sort of scenario,” with the guest offering a candid caveat that “in space, things do take a long time.”
Brandmeyer expressed personal enthusiasm for the Mars milestone, saying, “I hope we land people on Mars. I think that would be incredible for humanity to see that during our lifetimes.”
For investors, the more actionable near-term theme raised in the conversation is the convergence of artificial intelligence and satellite data, which Brandmeyer identified as already reshaping decision-making on Earth.
He highlighted that satellites are now “digesting that, analyzing that, and making decision-making on Earth a lot faster,” describing a workflow driven by autonomous edge computing conducted in orbit rather than by transmitting raw data back to ground stations.
That dynamic connects to Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s own 2026 outlook, which frames AI as one of the defining catalysts shaping both public and private market opportunities this year.
Space is increasingly viewed as one of the clearest expressions of AI capital expenditure spillover, as on-orbit computing demands begin to mirror the infrastructure buildout seen in terrestrial data centers.
Companies gaining exposure through communications backhaul, geospatial analytics for insurance and agriculture, in-space pharmaceutical partnerships, and defense-adjacent aerospace innovation may ultimately capture more value than launch operators themselves.
Recent aerospace merger and acquisition activity supports that pattern, with RTX’s (NYSE: RTX) Pratt and Whitney unit acquiring Aiir Innovations to bring AI-assisted borescope software to commercial, civil, and military engine inspection programs.
That deal illustrates how AI is reshaping the aerospace value chain from the maintenance and operations end, well below the headline level of rocket launches and satellite deployments.
Three signals stand out as indicators worth monitoring: the pace at which commercial spending expands as a share of global space budgets, the number of non-space corporations signing multi-year satellite data or in-orbit research and development contracts, and how AI pipelines built for terrestrial data centers get retooled for onboard satellite compute.
If Brandmeyer’s internet analogy proves accurate, the 2050 leaderboard of space’s biggest players is being drafted right now, and most of the names on it will come from industries that treat orbit as plumbing rather than as their primary business.
The full conversation is available on Goldman Sachs’ Exchanges podcast page for investors seeking a deeper look at how the firm is thinking about the long-term structure of the space economy.
