The $75 billion IPO for Elon Musk's SpaceX is just the latest sign of explosive growth in the global space industry, which is forecast to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035. Latin America, it turns out, has more to offer this boom than most people realize. Countries along the equator such as Ecuador, Brazil and Peru are among the most efficient and cost-effective places on Earth to launch satellites into orbit. In the Southern Cone, countries are already sought-after locations for ground observatories and some of them, like Argentina and Brazil, are producing their own satellites. The region's potential has caught the eye of the world's two superpowers, with the United States and China competing for influence on the ground. 

Today on the podcast, we ask how Latin America can fully exploit its natural advantages, how the US-China rivalry is playing out across the region, and what governments and companies need to do to become protagonists, not just a battleground, in the burgeoning space economy. 

Our guest is Laura Delgado López, senior fellow at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida International University and a contributor to AQ's latest issue.