DeLaine Mayer joins Lisa Burke for this episode of The Space Economy, filmed at Space Resources Week 2026 in Luxembourg. She designed and teaches New York University's first graduate course on Astropolitics - the politics, policies, and technologies of outer space - at the Center for Global Affairs. She holds an M.S. with distinction from NYU in Global Affairs, specializing in Energy and Environmental Policy, and an M.S. in Space Resources from the Colorado School of Mines. In 2021, she won NASA iTech's "space packaging" competition, proposing that waste-to-bioplastic technology could support circular economies in space.

In this conversation, Lisa and DeLaine examine:

• DeLaine's unconventional path into space - from anti-poverty and racial justice law work with AmeriCorps, to researching the geopolitics of rare earth mining, to space resources

• Why space needs voices beyond engineers, and how her NYU course brings political scientists, military professionals, and policymakers into the conversation

• The idea that infrastructure - on Earth and in orbit - is never politically neutral, and who gets to own and build it

• Dual-use technology, orbital debris removal, and the geopolitical tension of who is trusted to operate it

• Whether Earth's cooperation problems will follow humanity into space, and the role of interoperability standards in avoiding that

• The growing power of private companies in space, from SpaceX's IPO to the U.S. Golden Dome initiative, and what that means for space governance

• Earth observation data as an entry point for emerging economies into the space sector

• Circular economy thinking and waste management challenges on the International Space Station and beyond