2 Aerospace Stocks to Buy and Hold for the Next 20 Years

Rocket Lab’s revenue is expected to rise from $602 million in 2025 to $1.53 billion in 2028 as it prepares to launch the Neutron rocket and expand customer contracts. Joby Aviation’s revenue is projected to grow from $53 million to $458 million over the same period as it scales commercial eVTOL air taxi flights. The article is broadly bullish on both companies’ 20-year growth potential, though it frames both stocks as expensive at 40x and 23x 2028 sales, respectively.

Analysis

RKLB is the cleaner near-term operating leverage story, but the market is still underwriting it like a launch-services company rather than a vertically integrated space infrastructure platform. The second-order catalyst is not just more launches; it is a widening set of adjacent revenue pools — spacecraft components, mission services, and national-security demand — that can compress customer concentration and improve gross margin mix faster than headline launch growth suggests. The main debate is whether the market is paying too much for 2028 revenue before Neutron proves cadence; if cadence slips, multiple compression can hit before the fundamental inflection arrives.

JOBY is a longer-duration optionality trade with a more binary commercialization path. The hidden upside is that eVTOL adoption does not need mass-market penetration to matter: even a thin premium airport-transfer network can create a defensible yield pool if integrated with airline loyalty and corporate travel channels. The risk is regulatory and operational, but the bigger issue is unit economics — if battery degradation, maintenance, or vertiport bottlenecks keep utilization low, the TAM narrative stays ahead of the cash flow reality for several years.

The competitive dynamic favors the incumbents and ecosystem partners more than the pure-plays: DAL and UBER can monetize distribution without bearing full development risk, while BKSY can benefit if space launch cadence expands and lowers replenishment friction for LEO assets. The contrarian view is that the market may be underestimating the duration of the runway: these are not 12-month trades but multi-year platform bets, so any disappointment in 2025-2026 execution likely creates better entry points than thesis breakage. Near term, the biggest factor is whether capital markets keep rewarding pre-profit growth; if that regime weakens, both names can derate sharply even if the long-term story remains intact.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long RKLB into any post-catalyst weakness over the next 1-3 months; target a 12-18 month horizon where Neutron execution and defense mix can re-rate the stock, but size modestly because cadence risk can trigger a 20-30% drawdown on delay.
• Buy JOBY only as a staged position over 6-12 months, preferably on commercialization or certification pullbacks; use it as a long-duration call option on urban air mobility, but cap sizing given binary regulatory and utilization risk.
• Pair trade: long DAL / short a basket of overhyped mobility enablers if you want cleaner exposure to eVTOL adoption without full development risk; DAL captures distribution economics first, while JOBY bears the operating uncertainty.
• Add BKSY as a lower-volatility satellite-services proxy tied to the same launch expansion theme; this is the cleaner second-order beneficiary if LEO replenishment cycles intensify and launch bottlenecks ease.
• Avoid chasing both names at elevated forward sales multiples; prefer call spreads or partial entries because any slip in 2025-2026 milestones could compress valuation before revenue inflects.