When Katy Perry first sang Firework 15 years ago, it seemed unlikely that she would ever ‘shoot across the sky’ like the subject of her top-selling hit.

But this week, the 40-year-old singer will fly 62 miles above the earth’s surface on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket ship, with the Amazon founder’s fiancee Lauren Sanchez, in a flight that will further boost the popularity of ‘space tourism’.

Space tourism, where paying customers blast off towards orbit, could be worth $4-6 trillion before 2035, according to a report from the World Economic Forum, with wealthy individuals paying for trips to space stations and for flights like Perry’s.

So how can investors get in on the interstellar action?

You’ll need patience

Tickets for flights, such as the one Perry is taking, cost around $450,000. However, many believe that the space-travel sector will evolve in the same manner as commercial flights, which moved from being prohibitively expensive to an affordable luxury.

The possibilities are huge, but the timescales may be too. Mark Boggett, chief executive of Seraphim Space, a trust that invests in space opportunities, says: ‘The space tourism market, while fascinating, is a nascent industry that remains decades away from commercialising at any reasonable scale.’

Power-up couple: Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and his fiancee Lauren Sanchez

Know the major players

There are a small number of companies offering flights and accommodation, and other businesses will struggle to cope with the high start-up costs to get into the game.

The companies in the frame are:

Blue Origin The Blue Origin ship that will take Katy Perry to space will pass the Karman line, the internationally recognised boundary of space 62 miles above earth.

Passengers can experience brief weightlessness and glimpse the curvature of the earth before returning. Flights are sub-orbital, which means that they reach a high altitude but not the speed necessary to enter a stable orbit around the earth.

The company is also developing a space ‘business park’ called Orbital Reef designed to be used for space tourism and other activities. It is privately owned.

Virgin Galactic The space travel group founded by Richard Branson is floated on the US stock exchange and Branson owns a minority stake.

The company announced last month that it is building a new Delta spaceship, with test flights expected in spring and tourist flights starting next summer.

The group has not flown since last summer and there’s a 700-strong backlog of paying passengers for flights, which are expected to cost just under £500,000 for a seat.

SpaceX Founded by Elon Musk, SpaceX is privately owned – but there are ways of getting exposure to it through funds. Musk owns just over 40 per cent of the shares.

Space X also makes rockets and develops satellites through its Starlink subsidiary.

The company’s Dragon 2 spacecraft are available for space tours, with Bitcoin investor Chun Wang splashing down off the Southern California Coast earlier this month after a flight above both poles.

Boeing Aerospace company Boeing built the Starliner spacecraft, which left astronauts stranded at the International Space Station last year.

The company has had the right to sell extra seats in its craft to space tourists when sending people to the ISS but has not yet done so. After Starliner’s problems, many believe tourism will not be its focus.

How you can invest

Virgin Galactic and Boeing are both listed on the US stock exchange, so you can choose to buy those shares directly to get a ‘hit’ of space tourism.

If you buy Boeing, however, you are really investing in a defence and aerospace company with a bit of space tourism on the side.

Virgin Galactic is lossmaking, and its next flight isn’t scheduled until summer 2026. The income it makes is from people reserving seats on planned flights, so there’s already a backlog of customers.

The company’s shares have declined by nearly 90 per cent in the last year – but just because something is cheap that doesn’t make it a bargain.

If the planned flights go ahead successfully that might revitalise the stock next summer. However, you may have to wait a while for this, while further delays would knock sentiment.

Investing in SpaceX is possible through funds that hold it as part of their overall portfolio.

Darius McDermott, head of fund service FundCalibre, says that his preferred way to access this, and space tourism in general, is the Scottish Mortgage investment trust – an industry stalwart that has underperformed in recent years. Space X makes up 7 per cent of the portfolio.

SpaceX also has its satellite and wifi businesses, so it is less exposed than Virgin Galactic, which focuses on space tourism alone.

Beware the risks

With limited customers able to pay the price for space flights, it may be many years before a tourism portfolio pays off. ‘Space travel is a very niche investment opportunity. It is expensive to take stuff into space and often not commercially viable,’ McDermott warns.

If you are interested in the space theme, there are also ways to invest that are not wholly dependent on the success of space tourism. However, this too is high risk and should only make up a small proportion of portfolios of those who choose to invest.

Seraphim Space Investment Trust focuses on space technology.Its top three holdings are ICEYE, D-Orbit and All.Space. ICEYE focuses on satellite monitoring, D-Orbit on what is known as ‘space logistics’ – such as the delivery of satellites – and All.Space on defence communications.

It also has an investment in Voyager Space, the leading private space station which is being co-funded by Nasa to become one of the options to replace the International Space Station when it reaches end-of-life in a few years.

Boggett, at Seraphim, says he believes this part of the space industry has huge potential.

‘The new US administration has signalled its enthusiasm for innovative commercial providers to drive both the lofty ambitions for manned missions to Mars and greater efficiency in defence spending,’ he says. James Carthew, head of investment companies at research group QuotedData, says Seraphim is ‘unique’ and ‘invests in these parts that are unreachable by most earthlings’ because so much of the industry is unlisted.

‘The trust is focused on the smaller company end of the market so doesn’t include SpaceX in its portfolio, which is also a useful diversifying factor,’ he adds.

Seraphim trades on a huge discount to net asset value of less than half of its underlying assets – but it may be a long time until that discount narrows. Its shares are down 12 per cent in the last year and 52 per cent over five.

‘If the trust fulfils the promise that Mark [Bogett] sees for it, the result could be spectacular,’ Carthew says.

Exchange-traded fund Procure (with the stock ticker UFO) tracks an index of stocks involved in space and defence. It is up 22 per cent over the last year and 14.7 per cent over five. Top holdings include satellite groups Garmin and Sirius XM, and it costs 0.75 per cent for investors to hold.

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