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Varda Space Human Orbit Prediction 2026: Why Labor Might Be Cheaper Than Robots

2 min readSource

Explore the Varda Space human orbit prediction 2026. Learn why industrial labor might move to space and the ethical challenges of resource ownership.

Forget the sleek robots of sci-fi. Your next coworker in orbit might be a human. While Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos imagines a robotic workforce, a new industrial reality is emerging where human labor remains the most cost-effective option for space manufacturing.

The Varda Space Human Orbit Prediction 2026: A Provocative Future

At a recent industry summit, Will Bruey, founder of Varda Space, made a striking claim: within 15 to 20 years, it'll be cheaper to send a working-class human to orbit for a month than to develop advanced machines for the same tasks. This shift suggests that the 'final frontier' won't just be for scientists, but for industrial workers.

Workers already have a hard enough time on Earth... that dependence on our employers only increases dramatically when one is dependent on one’s employer not just for a paycheck, but for air.

Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Wesleyan University

The 2026 landscape for space law is fraught with tension. While the 1967 Outer Space Treaty forbids national sovereignty over celestial bodies, the US 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act allows companies to own extracted resources. This discrepancy has led to what some call 'cosmic land grabbing.'

Outer Space Treaty established; no nation can claim the moon.
US passes law allowing private ownership of extracted space resources.
Artemis Accords created to formalize resource extraction rules among allies.
Industry anticipates the Kessler effect as debris reaches critical levels.

Geopolitical friction remains high. Currently, 60 nations have signed the Artemis Accords, but China and Russia are notably absent. The Wolf Amendment continues to block NASA from collaborating with China, even as environmental risks like the Kessler effect—a runaway collision of over 40,000 trackable objects—threaten the usability of orbit for everyone.

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