On July 20th, 1969, the world stopped.
While the Earth kept spinning, people from around the globe froze, captivated by the black and white footage of a man taking one small step onto another world. Following Neil Armstrong’s famous journey for all humankind, 11 more men touched down upon the surface of the Moon, ending with Gene Cernan in 1971, who boldly promised, “we leave as we came and, god willing, as we shall return.” However, in the 50 years since, Cernan’s proclamation has slipped from promise, to prophecy, to far off dream.
The greatest barrier keeping humankind from the Moon isn’t technology, but politics.
The Apollo missions were driven by the Cold War politics of the US and USSR battling for supremacy across every frontier. Conquering space was the holy grail of challenges that would prove to the world which regime was better, but the space race that followed scared the world as much as it did inspire. The United Nations enacted the Outer Space Treaty (OTS) in 1967 to ensure that the ongoing space race would be done “for peaceful purposes” to protect the province of all mankind. The OTS was a broad set of principles, little more than a framework, to guide the development of more detailed international laws, but other than a few small resolutions, it remains the primary legal structure for all international activity in space. The imprecise nature of the Outer Space Treaty has created immense problems for the international community as nations disagree on how the resources of space should be allocated.
The US seeks to return to the Moon, not for humankind, but for itself and its eight partners.
In 2017, the United States declared that it would return to the Moon under the Artemis Program and bring with it a new framework for operating in space. The Artemis Accords, bilateral agreements between the United States and eight other countries, would operationalize the loose framework of the OTS and allow for greater security and prosperity of all nations involved. Notably, the Artemis Accords eschewed traditional forms of international space law like the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPOUS) for a faster and more controllable system. This nationalistic approach has angered many dominant space-faring nations¬ – Russia, China, ESA, and others – who see this as a tactic by the US to dominate the new space era. Beyond its formation, the Artemis Accords are contentious in how they divide the resources of space amongst nations.
The most contentious part of the Artemis Accords is a fight over Moon rocks.
Much of the Artemis Accords is an extrapolation of the principles outlined in the Outer Space Treaty as an assuagement to other nations that the US isn’t trying to control space. The Accords have ten driving principles around transparency, interoperability, and the sustainability in space, but the two last principles have deterred many international partners. Specifically, these principles allow for the mining of space resources and the institution of safety zones around each nation’s operation. The exploitation of space resources directly conflicts with excerpts from the Moon Agreement – a UN attempt to expand upon the Outer Space Treaty in 1979 – that claims the resources of celestial bodies belong to all nations. While the United States and many other countries never ratified the Moon Agreement, the direct conflict between the Artemis Accords and the United Nations’ treaty highlight the contentious US decisions to pursue bilateral rather than international agreements. Furthermore, other nations have expressed major concern that safety zones are a pseudo claim of sovereignty over part of a celestial body, which is strictly outlawed by the Outer Space Treaty.
How then to revise the Artemis Accords to realign with Gene Cernan’s promise?
If the United States seeks to return to the Moon for the benefit of all humankind, then it must make a commitment to adhering to international law. While the Artemis Accords were designed to operate faster than the tedious process of passing international treaties, the US should commit to a date in which it uses the lessons learned from Artemis to design an international treaty. Furthermore, the United States should ensure that no one nation can exploit all of a space resource by delegating power to an international committee that determines resource caps and specific areas of operation, rather than a first come, first serve basis.
With these revisions in mind, the United States can assuage fears of hegemonic control and refocus on the true mission of the Artemis Program: advancing the agency of humanity, one giant leap at a time.
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