image source, Getty Images
We are at the height of the lunar tide. A growing number of countries and companies have the lunar surface in their sights in a race for resources and space dominance. So are we ready for this new era of lunar exploration?
Images of China’s flag unfurled on the moon were sent to Earth this week. It’s the country’s fourth landing there — and the first-ever mission to return samples from the far side of the moon. In the past 12 months, India and Japan have also put spacecraft on the lunar surface. In February, American firm Intuitive Machines became the first private company to place a lander on the moon, and there are many more to follow.
Meanwhile, NASA wants to send people back to the moon, with its Artemis astronauts aiming for a landing in 2026. China says it will send people to the moon by 2030. And instead of fleeting visits, the plan is to build permanent bases.
But in an age of renewed great power politics, this new space race could lead to tensions on Earth spilling over onto the lunar surface.
“Our relationship with the Moon is going to change fundamentally very soon,” warns Justin Holcomb, a geologist at the University of Kansas. The speed of space exploration is now “outpacing our laws,” he says.
A 1967 UN agreement states that no nation can own the moon. Instead, the fantastically named Outer Space Treaty says that it belongs to all and that all exploration must be done for the benefit of all mankind and in the interest of all nations.
Although it sounds very peaceful and cooperative – and it is – the driving force behind the Outer Space Treaty was not cooperation, but Cold War politics.
As tensions rose between the US and the Soviet Union after World War II, the fear was that space could become a military battlefield, so a key part of the treaty was that no nuclear weapons could be sent into space. More than 100 nations signed up.
But this new space age looks different from the one back then.
image source, Getty Images
One big change is that modern missions to the moon are not just projects of nations – companies are also competing.
In January, a US commercial mission called Peregrine announced it would take human ashes, DNA samples and a sports drink, along with branding, to the moon. A fuel leak meant it never got there, but it sparked debate about how providing this eclectic inventory fit into the treaty’s principle that exploration should benefit all of humanity.
“We’re starting to just send stuff over there, just because we can. There’s no rhyme or reason anymore,” says Michelle Hanlon, a space attorney and founder of For All Moonkind, an organization that seeks to protect the Apollo landing sites. “Our Moon is nearby, and now we’re starting to abuse it,” she says.
But even if lunar private enterprise is on the rise, nation-states ultimately remain key players in all of this. Said Mostesar, director of the London-based Institute for Space Policy and Law, said any company would have to get permission to go into space from a country, which would be restricted by international treaties.
Joining the elite club of moon landers still carries great prestige. After their successful missions, India and Japan could claim to be global space players.
And a nation with a successful space industry can give a big boost to the economy through jobs, innovation.
But the race to the moon offers an even greater prize: its resources.
Although the lunar terrain looks fairly barren, it contains minerals, including rare earth elements, metals like iron and titanium – and also helium, which is used in everything from superconductors to medical equipment.
Estimates of the value of all this vary wildly, from billions to quadrillion. So it’s easy to see why some see the Moon as a place to make a lot of money. It’s important to note, however, that this would be a very long-term investment — and the technology needed to extract and return these lunar resources is a long way off.
In 1979, an international treaty declared that no country or organization could claim ownership of the resources there. But it wasn’t popular – only 17 countries participated in it, and that doesn’t include countries that have been to the moon, including the US.
In fact, the US passed a law in 2015 allowing its citizens and industries to mine, use and sell any space material.
“It caused a great deal of consternation among the international community,” Michelle Hanlon told me. “But slowly others followed suit with similar national laws.” These include Luxembourg, the UAE, Japan and India.
The resource that may be most in demand is surprising: water.
“When the first moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts were analyzed, they were thought to be completely dry,” explains Sarah Russell, professor of planetary sciences at the Museum of Natural History.
“But then something of a revolution happened about 10 years ago and we found that they had tiny traces of water in them trapped in phosphate crystals.”
And at the moon’s poles, she says, there’s even more — stores of water ice frozen in permanently shadowed craters.
Future visitors could use the water for drinking, it could be used to generate oxygen, and astronauts could even use it to produce rocket fuel by splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen, allowing them to travel from the moon to Mars and beyond.
Now the US is trying to establish a new set of guiding principles on lunar exploration – and lunar exploitation. The so-called Artemis Accords state that the extraction and use of resources on the Moon must be done in a way that is consistent with the Outer Space Treaty, although it says some new rules may be needed.
More than 40 countries have so far signed these non-binding agreements, but China is notably absent from the list. And some argue that the new rules for lunar exploration should not be driven by a single nation.
“This really has to be done through the UN because it affects all countries,” Said Moshetar tells me.
But access to resources can also cause another clash.
Although there is plenty of room on the Moon, areas near ice-filled craters are prime real estate on the Moon. So what happens if they all want the same place for their future base? And once a country has established one, what prevents another nation from establishing its base too close?
“I think there’s an interesting analogy with Antarctica,” says Jill Stewart, a researcher in space policy and law at the London School of Economics. “We will probably see research bases being established on the moon as they are on the continent.”
But specific decisions about a new moon base, such as whether it covers a few square kilometers or a few hundred, may come down to who gets there first.
“There’s definitely going to be a first-mover advantage,” says Jill Stewart.
“So if you can get there first and set up camp, then you can determine the size of your exclusion zone. It doesn’t mean you own that land, but you can sit in that place.
Right now, the first settlers will most likely be either the US or China, adding a new layer of rivalry to an already strained relationship. And they are likely to set the standard – the rules established by whoever gets there first may turn out to be the rules that last.
If this all sounds a bit ad hoc, some of the space experts I’ve spoken to think it’s unlikely we’ll see another major international space treaty. The dos and don’ts of lunar exploration are more likely to be understood through memoranda of understanding or new codes of conduct.
There’s a lot at stake. The moon is our constant companion as we watch it wax and wane through its various phases as it shines brightly in the sky.
But as this new space race begins, we need to start thinking about what kind of place we want it to be—and whether it risks becoming an environment where very earthly rivalries play out.
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