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WASHINGTON – NASA is offering to buy company-collected lunar samples for a nominal sum primarily to set a precedent for space resource rights on the Moon.
In a request issued Sept. 10, NASA solicited quotes from companies willing to go to the moon and sell 50 to 500 grams of lunar rocks or regolith. Once the company collected the sample and provided evidence of doing so, NASA would take possession of the sample and pay the company. The company would not have to return the sample to Earth, but would instead let NASA collect it on a future mission.
The main purpose of the transaction is to set a precedent for the extraction and transfer of lunar resources, rather than obtaining the samples for scientific or other use. “We are going to buy some lunar soil to show that it can be done,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in remarks Sept. 10 at the Safe World Foundation Space Sustainability Summit.
While the request for quotes did not specify a price NASA would pay for the samples, Bridenstine said the agency was willing to pay between $ 15,000 and $ 25,000 for the samples. In a panel discussion later in the conference, Mike Gold, acting associate administrator for international and interagency relations, estimated the total amount available under the program at $ 50,000. Those figures are a small fraction of the cost of going to the moon and collecting lunar material.
“What we are trying to do is make sure there is a standard of behavior that says that resources can be mined and that we are doing it in a way that complies with the Outer Space Treaty,” Bridenstine said.
This is based on both national law and policy. The 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Law gave companies rights to the resources they extracted from the moon or other celestial bodies. An executive order in April directed agencies to seek international support for that position, and the Artemis Accords, announced by NASA in May, included the ability to mine and use lunar resources as one of its principles.
Those actions, Bridenstine said, are consistent with the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits countries from making territorial claims on the Moon or other worlds beyond Earth. “That is absolutely not what we intend to do, but we believe that we can extract and use the resources of the moon just as we can extract and use tuna from the ocean,” he said.
The ability to utilize lunar resources is critical to the long-term sustainability of Artemis’s overall lunar exploration program, he argued. “We cannot go to the moon in a sustainable way unless we are using the resources of the moon,” he said.
However, there is no international consensus on the United States’ position on rights to extracted resources. Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates have enacted legislation inspired by the 2015 US law on the subject, but others consider such laws to at least run contrary to the intent of the Outer Space Treaty.
“Ultimately, we will need multilateral discussions,” said Tanja Masson-Zwaan, assistant professor and deputy director of the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University, during the conference panel discussion. “I can only hope this helps create more influence at the UN level.”
Space resources were to be a topic of discussion at this year’s meetings of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), but those meetings were canceled due to the pandemic. “The next step should be for the multilateral discussions to continue,” he said.
Both Bridenstine and Gold said they have had conversations with international partners about the Artemis Accords in general and the use of space resources in general. “We have received excellent feedback from our partner countries” on the agreements, Gold said.
He agreed that space resource issues should be discussed at COPUOS, but that NASA’s plans to use lunar resources should not wait for them. “These are ultimately issues that we hope to be able to resolve multilaterally, but the important thing is that we have the discussion, and that we have the discussion now,” he said. “That is what the Artemis Accords and many of our other activities are meant to do.”
NASA’s announcement garnered broad support from the commercial space industry and related organizations, who see it as a step toward supporting the development of a market for space resources and addressing the policy issues it creates. “This accelerates the conversation about something that is necessary for sustained human presence,” said Jessy Kate Schingler, director of policy research and governance at the Open Lunar Foundation, during the panel.
“I think what we are seeing here is a first step and I really hope that the international community responds,” he added.
