Ep 04: Where’s My Money?

Once we’ve reached out space settlements, what do we do next? What kind of jobs will be available, and what kind of economy will we have? What kinds of rights do we have as workers in space, and what will we do if our employer tries to exploit us while we’re stuck far from home?

Historian Margaret Newell rejoins us to talk about economics and labor practices in the early American colonies. Labor rights campaigner Sarah Newell provides some parallels between current labor rights abuses on Earth and potential future challenges for laborers in space.

The transcript for this episode is below.

Imagine this: You’ve done it. You sold everything you owned and moved to space. You’re broke, but you’re happy. You’ve unpacked your suitcase in your new home, introduced yourself to your new neighbors, and settled in. It’s time to get to work. After all, you’ll need to buy groceries and pay next month’s rent, and you have your eye on a new pair of space boots. So, who’s hiring? How will you make money in space? What if you lose your job and can’t afford to keep living in space, but can’t afford a ticket back to Earth? What if your employer refuses to let you go home from the asteroid you’re mining?

Welcome to Making New Worlds, a podcast about the ethical issues involved with settling space. I’m Erika Nesvold. Today I want to talk about economics and labor in space. For the rest of this episode, I’m going to be assuming that we’re talking about a capitalist system, because most of the people talking about settling space right now are working in that kind of system.

The economics of settling space is a huge question right now for the people who want to make space settlements a reality. Partly, that’s because space travel today is super expensive. So if you want to get into the space business, you have to be able to convince your investors that you’ll make enough money in space to make it worth their investment.

But the bigger question is about the long-term sustainability of a space settlement. If these new communities are going to last, they need to eventually be self-sufficient. If they’re just a constant drain on the Earth’s resources, then eventually people will go broke or they’ll get tired of paying to ship supplies up to space without getting enough value back. So the big question a lot of people are asking right now is, Where’s the value in space? What can you get in space that you can’t easily get on Earth, that you can sell back to the Earthlings?

I’m not an entrepreneur, and this podcast isn’t about how to make money in space. But the structure of the space economy is going to have a huge effect on the quality of life for the people living up there. Being poor or homeless in a space settlement could be even more dangerous and harmful than it is here on Earth. You’re not just worried about starving or freezing to death: What if you have to pay for the air you’re breathing? Or rent on your access to the pressurized habitat where everyone lives? What happens when you can’t pay your bills? Do they just kick you out an airlock?

Not to mention that profit has historically been the motivation for a lot of really horrible actions, against both people and the environment. So it’s worth talking about about how space settlements might make money.

On last week’s episode, I talked to historian Margaret Newell about how property rights worked in the early American colonies. During our conversation, I also asked her about the economics in those colonies. There have been tons of examples of colonization in Earth’s history, but I think European colonization in the Americas is an interesting parallel with space because corporations played such a big role, like they seem like they will in space.

Margaret Newell: