As humanity stretches into orbit and beyond, experts are still struggling with how the rights of Earth’s workers apply to those living in space.
Why does it matter: In order to create businesses and perhaps societies in space – where biological needs to support human life, such as air and water, are not available – there will need to be fundamental rights agreements to ensure that workers are not exploited.
- Translating human rights into professional astronauts and other space flyers is not necessarily straightforward. Experts say the international community must start fighting this now, decades before we have a city on Mars.
- How would the right to free speech work for an abused worker aboard a private space station where a company provides air and vital support?
- “In space, we have the opportunity to create a new holistic system from the beginning that includes labor protections, that includes political protections … that includes protections for accessibility to resources and oxygen and water,” said AJ Link , a research director with Jus Ad Astra, an organization focused on human rights in space, told Axios.
What happens: The UN Space Treaty classifies astronauts as a protected group that should be considered emissaries of humanity with rights and protections.
- But the rules on the rights of private astronauts in space are not clearly defined in the treaty, and this could complicate matters as more companies work to send private citizens into space.
- In theory, licensing nations to launch companies like SpaceX are responsible for what those businesses do in space, which means that people sent into orbit and beyond will be protected by those nations, but this has not been tested. large-scale yet.
Intrigue: While defining what rights an off-Earth worker may have may seem premature today, experts say the decisions made now will influence the appearance of rights in orbit for decades to come.
- Jeff Bezos detailed his vision of large, private orbiting space stations that will serve as manufacturing nodes for the industry, keeping this type of work polluting off the planet.
- Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already made the widespread (and unacceptable) claim that Mars is a “free planet and that no government on Earth has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities” as part of its Starlink beta test agreement.
- “It’s not hard to imagine a ‘company city’ scenario in which employers can leverage workers by controlling almost every aspect of their lives,” said Ed Finn, founding director of the University’s Center for Science and Imagination. of Arizona, for Axios. . “Organizing a walk is difficult when the only place to walk is the ruthless void on the other side of the lock.”
The whole picture: “One challenge I see facing private space exploration is that space exploration company leaders will set goals, rules, and sanctions that govern housing and space missions, probably with profit maximization as a goal,” said David Colby Reed, a graduate researcher in The MIT Media Lab’s Space Enabled research group told Axios.
- “This is as usual on Earth, but in space, such a private government becomes totalizing.”
- This control over both daily life and work could create a situation in which “it is difficult for a society free of equals to take root,” Reed added.
Bottom line: Sending people into space in the long run will require tough conversations today about what rights they will have in space and how hundreds to millions of miles of Earth will be enforced.