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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump government is drawing up a legal plan to mine on the moon under a new international agreement sponsored by the United States called the Artemis Accords, people familiar with the proposed pact told Reuters.
FILE PHOTO: The full moon, known as “Buck Moon”, is seen from West Orange, in New Jersey, United States on July 16, 2019. REUTERS / Eduardo Munoz
The deal would be the latest effort to cultivate allies around NASA’s plan to put humans and space stations on the moon in the next decade, and comes as the civilian space agency plays an increasingly important role in implementing the American foreign policy. The draft compact has yet to be formally shared with US allies. USA
The Trump administration and other countries sailing in space see the moon as a key strategic asset in outer space. The moon is also valuable for long-term scientific research that could allow future missions to Mars, activities that are framed by a regime of international space law widely seen as obsolete.
The Artemis Accords, named in honor of the new lunar Artemis program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, propose “security zones” that would surround future lunar bases to avoid damage or interference from rival countries or companies operating in the vicinity .
The pact also aims to provide a framework under international law for companies to own the resources they extract, the sources said.
In the coming weeks, US officials plan to formally negotiate the deals with space partners such as Canada, Japan and European countries, as well as with the United Arab Emirates, opening talks with countries that the Trump administration considers to have “like-minded” interests. in lunar mining.
Russia, a major NASA partner on the International Space Station, will not be one of the first partners in these deals, the sources said, as the Pentagon increasingly views Moscow as hostile for conducting “threatening” satellite maneuvers toward US spy satellites USA .
The United States is a member of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and sees “security zones” as an implementation of one of its hotly debated articles. It establishes that the celestial bodies and the moon “are not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, through use or occupation, or by any other means.”
“This is not a territorial claim,” said a source, who requested anonymity to discuss the deal. The security zones, the size of which would vary according to the operation, would allow coordination between space actors without technically claiming the territory as sovereign, he said.
“The idea is that if you’re going to get close to someone’s operations, and they have declared security zones around them, then you should contact them in advance, consult and discover how you can do that safely for everyone.”
ARTEMIS AS “NATIONAL POWER”
The Artemis Accords are part of the Trump administration’s plan to forgo the treaty process at the United Nations and instead reach an agreement with “like-minded nations”, in part because a treaty process would take too long and Working with non-sailing states would be unproductive, a senior administration official told Reuters.
As countries increasingly treat space as a new military domain, the U.S.-led deal is also emblematic of NASA’s growing role as a tool of American diplomacy and is expected to stoke controversy among space rivals from Washington as China.
“NASA has to do with science and technology and discovery, which are critically important, but I think less important is the idea that NASA is a tool of diplomacy,” the NASA administrator said Tuesday, Jim Bridenstine.
“The important thing is that countries around the world want to be part of this. That is the element of national power, “Bridenstine said, adding that participation in the Artemis program depends on countries adhering to” standards of behavior that we hope to see “in space.
NASA is investing tens of billions of dollars in the Artemis program, which calls for putting humans on the moon by 2024 and building a “sustainable presence” at the lunar south pole thereafter, with private rock mining companies moles and groundwater that can be converted into rocket fuel.
The United States enacted a law in 2015 that gives companies ownership rights to the resources they extract from outer space, but no such laws exist in the international community.
Joanne Gabrynowicz, editor-in-chief emeritus of the Journal of Space Law, said an international agreement must be reached before rethinking “some kind of exclusive area for science or for whatever reason.”
“It is nothing a nation can do unilaterally and still be legal,” he said.
Joey Roulette Reports; edited by Bill Tarrant and Jonathan Oatis
