As humanity spreads into orbit and beyond, experts still wonder how the rights granted to Earth workers to those living in space apply.
Why it’s important: To create companies and perhaps societies in space, where biological needs to sustain human life, such as air and water, are not readily available, there must be fundamental rights agreements to ensure that they are not workers explode.
- Translating human rights to professional astronauts and other spaceflights is not necessarily straightforward. Experts say the international community needs to start fighting this now, decades before we have a city on Mars.
- How would the right to free speech practically work for a battered worker aboard a private space station where a company provides air and life support?
- “In space, we have the opportunity to create a new holistic system from the beginning and that includes labor protections, that includes political protections … that includes protections for accessibility to resources, oxygen and water, “AJ Link reported. told Axios the director of Jus Ad Astra, an organization focused on human rights in space.
What is happening: The UN Outer Space Treaty classifies astronauts as a protected group that should be considered as 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 things as more companies work to send private citizens into space.
- In theory, nations that grant licenses to launch companies like SpaceX are responsible for what these companies do in space, meaning that people sent into orbit and beyond will be protected by these nations, but this has not been tested on a large scale. yet.
The plot: While defining what rights an off-Earth worker may have may seem premature today, experts say the decisions made now will influence the aspect of rights in orbit over the next few decades.
- Jeff Bezos has detailed his vision of large private space stations in orbit that will serve as manufacturing hubs for industry, keeping this kind of polluting work off the planet.
- Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already made the widespread (and unsupported) 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‘ business city ’scenario in which employers can exercise incredible leverage over workers by controlling almost every aspect of their existence,” Ed Finn, founding director of the Center for Science and the, told Axios Imagination of Arizona State University. . “Organizing a walk is tricky when the only place to go is the ruthless void on the other side of the key.”
The big picture: “One of the challenges I see facing private space exploration is that the leaders of space exploration companies will set the goals, rules, and sanctions that govern housing and space missions, probably with the goal of maximizing benefits, ”David Colby Reed, a researcher at the MIT Media Lab’s Space Enabled research group, told Axios.
- “This is normal, on Earth, but in space, this private government becomes totalitarian.”
- This control over both daily life and work could create a situation in which “it is difficult for a peer-free society to take root,” Reed added.
The summary: Sending people into space for the long haul will require tough conversations today about what rights they will have over space and how they will be applied hundreds or millions of miles from Earth.