NASA’s InSight spacecraft is about to blast off for Mars — and there are 3 ETFs that can help you invest in space travel. InSights plan is to study Mar’s deep interior.
“Scientists with the InSight mission — its full name is Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — hope that clues beneath the Martian surface will help them learn more about what the red planet was like in the past — when conditions could have been hospitable to life as we know it — and how it came to be the barren world we know today,” according to the L.A. Times.
InSight is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in on California’s Central Coast as early as 4:05 a.m. Pacific time Saturday. The trip to Mars will take nearly seven months and cover roughly 301 million miles.
Here are 3 ETFs to consider investing in if you want to invest in space. With a number of companies, these ETFs position you well for investing in both government space travel and eventually, private space travel.
ETFs with Exposure to Space
iShares US Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA) seeks to track the investment results of the Dow Jones U.S. Select Aerospace & Defense Index composed of U.S. equities in the aerospace and defense sector. The fund generally invests at least 90% of its assets in securities of the underlying index and in depositary receipts representing securities of the underlying index.
PowerShares Aerospace & Defense Portfolio (PPA) aims to provide broadly defined exposure to the aerospace & defense industry. PPA tracks a market-cap-weighted index of US-listed stocks involved in the defense, military, homeland security and space industries.
SPDR S&P Aerospace & Defense ETF (XAR) tracks an equal-weighted index of US aerospace & defense companies, as defined by GICS. XAR takes a different approach to its target than competitors. It holds a portfolio of aerospace and defense stocks, but while the benchmark concentrates on large-caps—and the very largest names in particular—XAR aims to achieve a 40/40/20 weighting among large-, mid-, and small-caps respectively.
Click here to watch the lift off live.