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Paper short abstract

Commercial settlement is framed as a future for all humanity, yet it often assumes that procreation in space will secure survival. I argue that procreation is a governance issue, so commercial space ethics should require explicit procreative governance rather than leaving reproduction implicit.

Paper long abstract

Commercial actors increasingly describe off-Earth settlement as a universal insurance policy and a future for all humanity. This paper argues that such promises rely on a largely unexamined moral assumption: that creating new people in space will be the default means of securing long-term survival. Yet commercial settlement plans make reproduction both politically marginal and practically central. They treat procreation as a background necessity while leaving unanswered who may reproduce, under what constraints, and with what responsibilities toward future children. In my paper, I develop a normative framework for assessing procreation in commercial space habitats, where life is defined by high risk, strict rationing, limited exit options, and deep dependence on corporate infrastructure. I argue that in such environments procreation cannot be treated as a private choice alone. It becomes a matter of governance, because it creates new vulnerable people whose welfare depends on decisions about resources, medical standards, liability, and mission priorities. Ignoring this turns humanity’s future rhetoric into a form of moral outsourcing to future dependents.