Justice in space

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter argues that the demanding nature of space environments (their hostility to human life; their lack of breathable air and consumable water) create a substantive obligation on the part of any space society to provide its citizens with guaranteed access to life support. Borrowing from Shue’s (1996) defence of subsistence rights, which calls for the protection of basic rights against ‘standard threats’, the chapter argues that space societies will be obliged to protect a right to life support (or to provide ‘life support security’). The ‘standard threats’ to life support security can be diminished significantly by refraining from pursuing space settlement projects that are likely to generate conditions of life support insecurity. It is within our power to determine the material conditions during the founding and early development of space societies. In response to the criticism that providing guaranteed access to life support in space would be hopelessly utopian or idealistic, the chapter argues that there are few known constraints on the developmental pathways of space societies. It is not known, and it cannot be assumed as an uncontroversial truth, that, whenever space societies are founded, it will not be feasible for them to provide guaranteed access to life support. Further, pessimism about human motivation also fails to provide a compelling objection to the requirement of guaranteed access to life support, because human motivation is subject to change on the timescales needed to plan and instigate space settlements.