From Human Experience to New Markets: Aimei Helen Yang Addresses an Emerging Demand Layer of the New Space Economy at ISDC 2026

As the New Space Economy accelerates toward a multi-trillion-dollar future, a new question is gaining attention at ISDC 2026: how will new markets emerge before people become space travelers? AI & Space panel speaker and three-time Gourmand Award-winning author Aimei Helen Yang argues that future growth may depend not only on infrastructure, but also on how human experiences, culture and emerging technologies create new consumer scenarios and future lifestyles. Through an evolving Space Consumer Practice, Yang explores how entirely new categories of products, services and experiences may begin shaping an emerging Space Experience Economy long before physical access to space becomes commonplace.

MCLEAN, Va. — At the International Space Development Conference (ISDC 2026), conversations surrounding the New Space Economy increasingly focused on launch systems, orbital infrastructure and future lunar ecosystems. As investment and innovation continue to accelerate across the global space sector, industry observers are beginning to view the New Space Economy as extending far beyond engineering itself. While rockets, habitats and orbital platforms remain essential foundations, discussions are increasingly turning toward the human dimensions of future space development.

Speaking during the AI & Space panel at ISDC 2026, Yang suggested that the next phase of growth may depend not only on hardware infrastructure, but also on how entirely new experiences, brands and emotional connections are created long before ordinary people travel beyond Earth.

This raises a broader question: if transportation systems and future infrastructure are being built today, how will entirely new markets, experiences and forms of human engagement emerge before space becomes part of everyday life?

According to McKinsey, the global space economy could reach $1.8 trillion by 2035, while Morgan Stanley estimates the broader sector may eventually exceed $1 trillion. As governments and private companies race to build launch systems, transportation networks and future infrastructure, much of today’s attention remains focused on engineering, manufacturing and future settlements.

Beyond transportation and infrastructure, attention is increasingly turning toward how experience-driven sectors may help create new forms of engagement and market demand within the New Space Economy. Many of these ideas build upon decades of work by pioneers such as John Spencer and the Space Tourism Society. Long before lunar tourism becomes commercially viable, advocates of the space tourism movement emphasized that humanity’s future in space depends not only on engineering achievements, but also on culture, lifestyle and public engagement. In many ways, creating emotional connections with space may prove as important as building the transportation systems themselves.

Rather than viewing this challenge purely through a technical lens, Yang believes an emerging Space Experience Economy represents an important interface between advanced technologies and human experience. Hospitality, education, tourism, storytelling, wellness, memorial spaceflight and gastronomy may help people imagine, understand and engage with life beyond Earth long before physical access to space becomes commonplace.

In this sense, the Space Experience Economy is not defined by any single industry. Rather, it reflects a broader shift toward experience-driven innovation, where culture, narratives and human connection become increasingly important components of the New Space Economy itself.

Building on more than three decades of experience in branding, communications and consumer behavior across retail, hospitality and food industries, Yang’s interest in the Space Experience Economy emerged from a series of practical questions rather than theoretical assumptions.

Beginning in 2024, she explored opportunities to introduce space-related experience projects to China, including Mars-themed entertainment concepts and memorial spaceflight services. While working on Brand for Space, Yang increasingly realized that before humanity meaningfully lives beyond Earth, people may first need ways to imagine it, understand it and emotionally connect with it.

This observation gradually led to a broader question: if humanity’s future beyond Earth depends not only on infrastructure but also on meaning and human experiences, how can abstract space concepts become part of everyday life?

Over the past three years, these ideas evolved into a series of experiments exploring what Yang describes as Space-Art Cuisine — an attempt to translate space-inspired concepts into sensory experiences through gastronomy, aesthetics and storytelling. Rather than treating food as the destination, the project investigates whether taste, narratives and cultural experiences can serve as early interfaces connecting people with future life beyond Earth.

These explorations have been documented through Brand for Space, Next Bite, Art Bite and ongoing work related to Space Bite, extending earlier ideas into broader discussions surrounding experience-driven innovation. Together, they represent a series of concept-led experiments examining how imagination, culture and human experiences may help bridge the gap between advanced technologies and everyday life.

Recognition from the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards and continuing exchanges with its founder Edouard Cointreau have encouraged further dialogue with chefs, designers and creative communities. In his official comments accompanying Next Bite, Cointreau described the project as “a trailblazing contribution to the future of cuisine,” noting its combination of space-inspired aesthetics and cultural perspectives. These exchanges have further reinforced broader discussions surrounding the role of sensory experiences, narratives and imagination in shaping future consumer experiences.

Later this June, these ideas will be shared at the Beijing International Book Fair, where discussions with hospitality professionals and culinary innovators are expected to explore how concept-led systems and sensory experiences may inspire new approaches to experiential dining and narrative-driven brand experiences.

These explorations gradually led to another realization. The significance of Space-Art Cuisine does not lie in food itself, but in the possibility that entirely new consumer scenarios may emerge long before physical access to space becomes commonplace. In this sense, hospitality, gastronomy, storytelling and other experience-driven sectors may represent early signals of what Yang describes as a Future Lifestyle Economy, where culture, meaning and human experiences become part of the value chain of the New Space Economy.

“The New Space Economy will ultimately require more than engineering,” Yang said. “It will require new experiences, new narratives and new forms of engagement. Before people travel to space, they may first need to experience it. AI may help connect these worlds, but no single industry or discipline can build this future alone.”

According to Yang, creating demand for the future may require more than technological breakthroughs. It may also require entirely new categories of products, services and experiences capable of helping people imagine, understand and emotionally connect with life beyond Earth. Rather than waiting for large-scale space tourism to become commercially viable, what she describes as Space Consumer Practice explores how technologies, narratives and accumulated market experience can converge to create new consumer scenarios and new forms of value creation on Earth today.

As experience-driven sectors become increasingly relevant to global aerospace discussions, greater international dialogue and cross-disciplinary collaboration may become essential to understanding how entirely new markets emerge before physical access to space becomes commonplace.

Scientists, entrepreneurs, educators, writers, designers and experience innovators are beginning to recognize that infrastructure alone does not automatically create markets. While rockets enable access and future settlements expand capabilities, entirely new forms of culture, lifestyles and consumer experiences may shape how people engage with humanity’s future beyond Earth.

Increasingly, attention is shifting toward a larger question: what happens before people become space travelers?

For Yang, the answer may lie in how technologies, narratives and human experiences converge to create entirely new categories of products, services and experiences long before physical access to space becomes part of everyday life.

In that sense, the next phase of the New Space Economy may begin not with transportation itself, but with new ways of imagining, experiencing and ultimately living the future. As future lifestyles evolve, entirely new markets and categories may emerge in ways that are difficult to predict today, extending the New Space Economy far beyond infrastructure and opening new opportunities for experience-driven innovation.

ABOUT AIMEI HELEN YANG

Aimei Helen Yang is a Space Experience Economy innovator and three-time Gourmand Award-winning author whose work explores the intersection of human experience, emerging technologies and future space economy.

With more than three decades of leadership experience spanning strategic communications, branding, marketing and consumer industries, she has advised global organizations and brands across retail, hospitality, food and beverage, technology and lifestyle sectors, including leadership roles within WPP and Walmart. Her work focuses on how culture, narratives and experience-driven innovation may create new forms of participation and demand long before physical access to space becomes commonplace.

A graduate of MIT Professional Education’s New Space Economy program, Yang is the author of Brand for Space and recent works including Next Bite, Art Bite and the forthcoming Space Bite. Her ongoing research explores what she describes as Space Consumer Practice—how technologies, accumulated market experience and human experiences may converge to create new categories of products, services and experiences within an emerging Space Experience Economy.

Yang is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), serves on the Advisory Council and Space Settlement Board of the Lifeboat Foundation, and was a speaker on the AI & Space track at the International Space Development Conference (ISDC 2026).