Who Owns the Stars? A Space Ethicist Weighs In on the Future of Space Labor and Resource Exploitation
In October, at a tech conference in Italy, Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos predicted that millions of people will be living in space “in the next couple of decades” and “mostly,” he’d said, “because they want to,” because robots will be more cost-effective than humans for doing the actual work in space. This vision of a spacefaring future, driven by automation, contrasts sharply with a recent prediction that’s sparked debate about the very nature of work beyond Earth.
The Rising Cost of Robots vs. Human Labor in Orbit
My attention was immediately drawn to a striking prediction made by Will Bruey, the founder of space manufacturing startup Varda Space Industries, at GearTech Disrupt in San Francisco. Rather than robots taking the lead as Bezos envisioned, Bruey posited that within 15 to 20 years, it will be cheaper to send a “working-class human” to orbit for a month than to develop more sophisticated machines. This assertion, seemingly counterintuitive in a tech-focused environment, raises fundamental questions about who will be working in space and under what conditions.
The Power Imbalance: Space as the Ultimate Workplace
To delve into these complex ethical considerations, I spoke with Mary-Jane Rubenstein, dean of social sciences and professor of religion and science and technology studies at Wesleyan University. Rubenstein, author of the acclaimed book Worlds Without End: The Many Lives of the Multiverse (which influenced the award-winning film “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), has been focusing her research on the ethics of space expansion. Her response to Bruey’s prediction centers on a critical issue: power imbalance.
“Workers already have a hard enough time on Earth paying their bills and keeping themselves safe… and insured,” Rubenstein explained. “And that dependence on our employers only increases dramatically when one is dependent on one’s employer not just for a paycheck and sometimes for health care, but also for basic access to food, water – and also to air.”
The Harsh Reality of the Space Environment
Rubenstein’s assessment of space as a workplace is stark. While the idea of escaping to a pristine frontier among the stars is romanticized, she emphasizes the unforgiving reality. “It is not nice up there,” she stated plainly. “It is not nice at all.” Space lacks the natural comforts of Earth – no oceans, mountains, or even birdsong. The environment is inherently hostile to human life, requiring complete reliance on employers for survival.
Who Owns Space? The Legal Gray Area of Resource Exploitation
Beyond worker protections, a growing concern revolves around the question of ownership in space – a legal landscape riddled with ambiguity, particularly as commercial space operations accelerate. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty established that no nation could claim sovereignty over celestial bodies. The moon, Mars, and asteroids were intended to be the common heritage of humanity.
The 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act: A Turning Point
However, the U.S. passed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act in 2015, which introduced a significant shift. While prohibiting ownership of celestial bodies themselves, the Act allows for the ownership of resources extracted from them. This sparked immediate interest in Silicon Valley, opening the door to commercial exploitation of space resources, while raising concerns globally.
Rubenstein offers a compelling analogy: “It’s like saying you can’t own a house, but you can own everything inside it.” She then corrects herself, arguing it’s even worse. “It’s more like saying you can’t own the house, but you can have the floorboards and the beams. Because the stuff that is in the moon is the moon. There’s no difference between the stuff the moon contains and the moon itself.”
Companies Racing to Exploit Space Resources
Several companies are already positioning themselves to capitalize on this framework:
- AstroForge is pursuing asteroid mining.
- Interlune aims to extract Helium-3 from the moon.
The critical issue is that these resources are non-renewable. “Once the U.S. takes [the Helium-3], China can’t get it,” Rubenstein warns. “Once China takes it, the U.S. can’t get it.” This raises the specter of a space “land grab” with potentially devastating consequences for international cooperation.
International Reactions and the Artemis Accords
The 2015 Act drew swift international criticism. At the 2016 UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) meeting, Russia denounced the Act as a unilateral violation of international law. Belgium cautioned about potential global economic imbalances.
In response, the U.S. created the Artemis Accords in 2020 – bilateral agreements with allied nations that formalized the American interpretation of space law, particularly regarding resource extraction. Over 60 countries have signed on, seeking to participate in the emerging space economy, though notably, Russia and China remain outside the agreement.
Despite the Accords, concerns persist. Rubenstein describes it as “one of those instances of the U.S. setting rules and then asking other people to join in or be left out.” The Accords don’t explicitly legalize resource extraction, but rather argue it doesn’t constitute the “national appropriation” prohibited by the Outer Space Treaty. It’s a delicate balancing act around a contentious issue.
A Call for International Cooperation and Ethical Frameworks
Rubenstein proposes a straightforward, though ambitious, solution: returning control to the UN and COPUOS. In the absence of that, she suggests repealing the Wolf Amendment, a 2011 law that restricts NASA and other federal agencies from collaborating with China or Chinese-owned companies without stringent FBI certification and Congressional approval.
When faced with arguments that collaboration with China is impossible, Rubenstein responds with a challenge: “We’re talking about an industry that is saying things like, ‘It’ll totally be possible to house thousands of people in a space hotel,’ or ‘It’ll be possible within 10 years to ship a million people to Mars, where there’s no air and where the radioactivity will give you cancer in a second and where your blood will boil and your face will fall off. If it’s possible to imagine doing those things, I think it is possible to imagine the U.S. talking to China.”
The Broader Vision for Space Exploration
Rubenstein’s overarching concern is about the direction of space development. She views the current approach – transforming the moon into a “cosmic gas station,” mining asteroids, and establishing military capabilities in orbit – as fundamentally misguided.
She categorizes science fiction into three genres:
- The “conquest” genre, focused on national or capitalistic expansion.
- Dystopian science fiction, serving as warnings about destructive paths.
- Speculative fiction, imagining alternative societies based on justice and care.
Rubenstein lamented that the “conquest” template dominates actual space development. “This seemed to me a real missed opportunity for extending the values and priorities that we have in this world into those realms that we have previously reserved for thinking in different kinds of ways.”
Looking Ahead: Regulations, Debris, and a Mindful Approach
While dramatic policy shifts may not be imminent, Rubenstein identifies realistic steps forward. One is strengthening environmental regulations for space actors, recognizing the potential impact of rocket emissions and re-entering debris on the ozone layer.
A more promising area for cooperation is space debris. With over 40,000 trackable objects orbiting Earth at 17,000 miles per hour, we’re approaching the Kessler effect – a runaway collision scenario that could render orbit unusable. “Nobody wants that,” she emphasizes. “The U.S. government doesn’t want that. China doesn’t want it. The industry doesn’t want it.” Space garbage is a shared threat, creating a rare alignment of interests.
Rubenstein is developing a proposal for an annual conference bringing together academics, NASA representatives, and industry leaders to discuss a more mindful, ethical, and collaborative approach to space exploration.
However, the current political climate suggests limited motivation for collaboration. Recent legislation in Congress even aims to make the Wolf Amendment permanent, further restricting cooperation with China.
In the meantime, startup founders continue to project rapid changes in space within the next decade, companies are positioning themselves for asteroid and lunar mining, and Bruey’s prediction about blue-collar workers in orbit remains unanswered, a stark reminder of the ethical challenges that lie ahead as humanity ventures further into the cosmos.