Four Stocks to Mark the End of the Shuttle Program

The era of heroes, riding off into space unknown and planting boots and flags, along with the hopes and dreams of humankind onto the soil of the moon, has come to an end. This week, the space shuttle Endeavour launched what is scheduled to be its final mission, and with its return to Earth, the entire space shuttle program will come in for a final landing. Facing government budget cuts and ambiguity over the mission, purpose, and usefulness of funding space shuttle rides into outer space, the government has terminated the shuttle program. The Americans will still send astronauts to the space station, but they will do so with Russian rockets and international cooperation, at least for the next decade. In the interim, the US government will decide if it wants to continue funding a new type of rocket-based vehicle to take astronauts into space, including proposed trips to Mars, the moon, and an asteroid, or if it wants to provide legal and financial cover for private firms to get into the space exploration and travel arena. Without knowing how the process will play out, here are a few stocks for investors to watch and consider as the next NASA budget and space missions are debated in Congress.

is an interesting stock to consider, as they are one of the industry leaders in, well, just about everything related to defense. While there are formal treaties in place preventing the militarization of space, it's almost a given that America will be the first to breech those agreements. When they do, look for military-connected GD to pick up some of the contracts.

is another interesting play. Depending on which way the government decides to go with their next generation of space vehicles, LMT could end up on the winning side of a procurement contract battle. If the government leans toward non-orbital crafts, Lockheed's expertise with aircraft might prove a winning choice for investors and NASA.

This is a stock that probably gets overlooked in space talks — a strange development for a company that makes rockets. Again, if the United States sticks with a rocket-based system, someone is going to have to benefit from the building and maintenance of those rockets. Would the US go with a company they already utilize for missile and rocket production? Perhaps.

At first glance, including Google in this list seems a bit tongue-in-cheek. After all, the running joke on Wall Street is that Google is involved in everything. But, really, this is no joke. Google is one of several private firms looking to be the world leaders in space travel. To that end, they've already invested $700 million into technologies to get themselves there.