Laying claim to the Moon has been declared illegal through internationalspace law and no state has made such claims,[5] despite having a range of probes and artificial remains on the Moon.
While a range of proposals for missions of lunar colonization, exploitation or permanent exploration have been raised, current projects for establishing permanent crewed presence on the Moon are not for colonizing the Moon, but rather focus on buildingmoonbases for exploration and to a lesser extent for exploitation oflunar resources.
The commercialization of the Moon is a contentious issue for national and international lunar regulation and laws (such as theMoon treaty).[6]
Colonization of the Moon has been imagined as early as the first half of the 17th century byJohn Wilkins inA Discourse Concerning a New Planet.[7][8]
In the earlySpace Age theUSSR and theUS engaged in dropping pennants[9] and raising flags on the Moon, like thisLunar Flag Assembly of 1969, but agreed internationally in 1967 with theOuter Space Treaty to not lay any claims over the Moon or any other celestial bodies.
Colonization of the Moon as a material process has been taking place since the first artificial objects reached the Moon after 1959.Luna landers scattered pennants of theSoviet Union on the Moon, andU.S. flags were symbolically planted at their landing sites by theApollo astronauts, but no nation claims ownership of any part of the Moon's surface.[10] Russia, China, India, and the U.S. are party to the 1967Outer Space Treaty,[11] which defines the Moon and all outer space as the "province of all mankind",[10] restricting the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes and explicitly banning military installations andweapons of mass destruction from the Moon.[12]
The landing of U.S. astronauts was seen as a precedent for the superiority of thefree-marketsocioeconomic model of the U.S., and in this case as the successful model forspace flight,exploration and ultimatelyhuman presence in the form of colonization. In the 1970s the word and goal of colonization was discouraged byNASA and funds as well as focus shifted away from the Moon and particularly toMars. But the U.S. eventually nevertheless opposed the 1979Moon Agreement which aimed to restrict the exploitation of the Moon andits resources. Subsequently, the treaty has been signed and ratified by only 18 nations, as of January 2020,[13] none of which engage in self-launchedhuman space exploration.
After U.S. missions in the 1990s suggested the presence oflunar water ice, its actual discovery in the soil at thelunar poles byChandrayaan-1 (ISRO) in 2008–2009 renewed interest in the Moon.[14] A range ofmoonbases have been proposed by states and public actors. Currently the U.S.-led internationalArtemis program seeks to establish with private contractors a state run orbital lunar way-station in the late 2020s, and China proposed with Russia the so-calledInternational Lunar Research Station to be established in the 2030s and aim for anEarth-Moon Space Economic Zone to develop by 2050.[15]
Current proposals mainly have the goal of exploration, but such proposals and projects have increasingly aimed for enabling exploitation or commercialization of the Moon. This move to exploitation has been criticized ascolonialist and contrasted by proposals for conservation (e.g. by the organizationFor All Moonkind),[16] collaborativestewardship (e.g. by the organizationOpen Lunar Foundation, chaired byChris Hadfield)[17] and theDeclaration of the Rights of the Moon,[18] drawing on the concept of theRights of Nature for a legal personality of non-human entities in space.[19]
The colonization of the Moon has been pursued and advocated for by a range of civil actors andspace advocacy groups since the advent of spaceflight, mainly to establish a permanenthuman presence and settlement on the Moon.[citation needed]
States have explicitly refrained from calling for lunar colonization and particularly from laying any claims of territory on the Moon, in accordance with international bans on any such claims.[20]
States though have been pursuing the establishment ofmoonbases, the first being the temporaryTranquility Base of Apollo 11 in 1969, the first crewed mission on the Moon.Those and contemporary concepts and plans for moonbases have had the purpose to advancespaceflight andspace exploration.
The 1967Outer Space Treaty defines the Moon and all outer space as the "province of all mankind".[23] It restricts the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes, explicitly banning military installations andweapons of mass destruction.[27] A majority of countries are parties of this treaty.[28]The 1979Moon Agreement was created to elaborate, and restrict the exploitation of theMoon's resources by any single nation, leaving it to a yet unspecified international regulatory regime.[29] As of January 2020, it has been signed and ratified by 18 nations,[30] none of which havehuman spaceflight capabilities.
Since 2020, countries have joined the U.S. in theirArtemis Accords, which are challenging the treaty. The U.S. has furthermore emphasized in a presidentialexecutive order ("Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources.") that "the United States does not view outer space as a 'global commons'" and calls the Moon Agreement "a failed attempt at constraining free enterprise".[31][32]
With Australia signing and ratifying both the Moon Treaty in 1986 as well as the Artemis Accords in 2020, there has been a discussion if they can be harmonized.[33] In this light anImplementation Agreement for the Moon Treaty has been advocated for, as a way to compensate for the shortcomings of the Moon Treaty and to harmonize it with other laws and agreements such as the Artemis Accords, allowing it to be more widely accepted.[34][35]
In the face of such increasing commercial and national interest, particularly prospecting territories, U.S. lawmakers have introduced in late 2020 specific regulation for the conservation of historic landing sites[36] and interest groups have argued for making such sitesWorld Heritage Sites[37] and zones of scientific value protected zones, all of which add to the legal availability and territorialization of the Moon.[38]
In 2021, theDeclaration of the Rights of the Moon[39] was created by a group of "lawyers, space archaeologists and concerned citizens", drawing on precedents in theRights of Nature movement and the concept of legal personality for non-human entities in space.[40][41]
For long-term sustainability, a space colony should be close to self-sufficient.Mining andrefining the Moon's materials on-site – for use both on the Moon and elsewhere in the Solar System – could provide an advantage over deliveries from Earth, as they can be launched into space at a much lower energy cost than from Earth. It is possible that large amounts of cargo would need to be launched into space for interplanetary exploration in the 21st century, and the lower cost of providing goods from the Moon might be attractive.[42]
In the long term, the Moon will likely play an important role in supplying space-based construction facilities with raw materials.[43] Microgravity in space allows for the processing of materials in ways impossible or difficult on Earth, such as"foaming" metals, where a gas is injected into a molten metal, and then the metal isannealed slowly. On Earth, gas bubbles may rise or fall due to their relative density to air, but in azero gravity environment this does not happen. Theannealing process requires large amounts of energy, as a material is kept very hot for an extended period of time (allowing the molecular structure to realign), and this too may be more efficient in space, as the vacuum drastically reduces all heat transfer except throughradiative heat loss.
Exporting material to Earth in trade from the Moon is problematic due to the cost of transportation, which would vary greatly if the Moon is industrially developed. One suggested trade commodity ishelium-3 (3He) which is carried by thesolar wind and accumulated on the Moon's surface over billions of years, but occurs only rarely on Earth.[44] Helium-3 might be present in thelunar regolith in quantities of 0.01 ppm to 0.05 ppm (depending on soil). In 2006 it had a market price of about $1,500 per gram ($1.5M per kilogram), more than 120 times the value per unit weight ofgold and over eight times the value ofrhodium.
In the future3He harvested from the Moon may have a role as a fuel inthermonuclearfusion reactors.[44][45] It should require about 100 metric tons (220,000 lb) of helium-3 to produce the electricity that Earth uses in a year and there should be enough on the Moon to provide that much for 10,000 years.[46]
In 2024, an American startup calledInterlune announced plans to mine Helium on the Moon for export to Earth. The first mission plans to use NASA'sCommercial Lunar Payload Services program to arrive on the moon.[47]
To reduce the cost of transport, the Moon could storepropellants produced from lunar water at one or severaldepots between the Earth and the Moon, to resupply rockets or satellites in Earth orbit.[48]
Video of the lunar south pole, showing areas of permanent shadow over several months (severallunar days)
Lunar scientists had discussed the possibility of water repositories for decades. They are now increasingly "confident that the decades-long debate is over" a report says. "The Moon, in fact, has water in all sorts of places; not just locked up inminerals, but scattered throughout the broken-upsurface, and, potentially, in blocks or sheets of ice at depth." The results from theChandrayaan mission are also "offering a wide array of watery signals."[49][50]
It is estimated there is at least 600 million tons of ice at the north pole in sheets of relatively pure ice at least a couple of meters thick.[51]
Gerard K. O'Neill, noting the problem of high launch costs in the early 1970s, proposed buildingSolar Power Satellites in orbit with materials from the Moon.[52] Launch costs from the Moon would vary significantly if the Moon is industrially developed. This proposal was based on the contemporary estimates of future launch costs of the Space Shuttle.
On April 30, 1979, the Final Report "Lunar Resources Utilization for Space Construction" by General Dynamics Convair Division under NASA contract, NAS9-15560 concluded that the use of lunar resources would be cheaper than terrestrial materials for a system comprising as few as thirty Solar Power Satellites of 10 GW capacity each.[53]
In 1980, when NASA's launch cost estimates for the Space Shuttle were grossly optimistic, O'Neill et al. published another route to manufacturing using lunar materials with much lower startup costs.[54] This 1980s SPS concept relied less on human presence in space and more on partially self-replicating systems on the lunar surface undertelepresence control of workers stationed on Earth.
^Marc Ferro (1997).Colonization. Routledge. p. 1.doi:10.4324/9780203992586.ISBN9780203992586."Colonization is associated with the occupation of a foreign land, with its being brought under cultivation, with the settlement of colonists. If this definition of the term “colony” is used, the phenomenon dates from theGreek period. Likewise we speak of Athenian, then Roman 'imperialism'."
^Johnson, S. W.; Leonard, R. S. (1985). "Evolution of Concepts for Lunar Bases".Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century. Houston, Texas: Lunar and Planetary Institute. p. 48.Bibcode:1985lbsa.conf...47J.
^Tung Dju (T. D.) Lin, cited viaJames, Barry (February 13, 1992)."On Moon, Concrete Digs?".International Herald Tribune. Archived fromthe original on November 24, 2006. RetrievedDecember 24, 2006.
Resource Utilization Concepts for MoonMars; ByIris Fleischer, Olivia Haider, Morten W. Hansen, Robert Peckyno, Daniel Rosenberg and Robert E. Guinness; September 30, 2003; IAC Bremen, 2003 (Sept 29 – October 3, 2003) and MoonMars Workshop (Sep 26–28, 2003, Bremen). Accessed on January 18, 2010.
