The legal and ethical gaps in the commercial space rush

This week, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, the dean of social sciences and professor of religion and science and technology studies at Wesleyan University, highlighted the contrast between corporate space visions and orbital reality. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, predicted millions of people will live in space in the next couple of decades. Meanwhile, Varda Space Industries founder Will Bruey predicted that within 15 to 20 years, sending a working-class human to orbit for a month will be cheaper than developing better machines. Rubenstein challenges this labor model. “Workers already have a hard enough time on Earth paying their bills and keeping themselves safe … and insured,” Rubenstein said. She noted orbital employees would depend on employers for basic necessities like air, describing space as not nice at all.

Beyond labor, the legal framework for space resources is highly contested. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty established that no nation could claim sovereignty over celestial bodies, which are supposed to belong to all of humanity. However, the 2015 U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act allows ownership of extracted space resources. Rubenstein compares this to telling someone they cannot own a house, but can own the floorboards and beams. This framework cleared the path for AstroForge and Interlune to pursue resource extraction.

This unilateral approach has fueled geopolitical friction. In 2020, the U.S. established the Artemis Accords—bilateral agreements formalizing the American interpretation of space law regarding resource extraction. While the accords have 60 signatories, Russia and China are excluded. Rubenstein characterized the accords as the U.S. setting rules and requiring others to join or be left out. She points out that once the U.S. takes Helium-3, China cannot get it. To foster cooperation, she suggests working through the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) and repealing the Wolf Amendment, a 2011 US law that essentially bans NASA from working with China. Rubenstein argues that if the industry believes it can ship people within 10 years to Mars—where radioactivity will give you cancer in a second and your blood will boil and your face will fall off—then diplomatic dialogue with China should also be conceivable.

The lack of international coordination also threatens orbital safety. More than 40,000 trackable objects circle Earth at 17,000 miles per hour. This debris risks triggering the Kessler effect, a runaway collision scenario that could render orbit unusable. Because this harms all spacefaring nations, Rubenstein views debris mitigation as a rare area where interests of the U.S., China, and commercial operators align.

Why it matters

As commercial space operations accelerate, the lack of international consensus on labor and resource rights risks creating a “wild west” scenario that could destabilize both orbital safety and geopolitical relations.