Is a space mining war inevitable?

He also proposed a global legal framework for moon mining, called the Artemis Accords, encouraging citizens to exploit Earth’s natural satellite and other celestial bodies for commercial purposes.

The directive classified outer space as a “legally and physically unique area of ​​human activity” rather than a “global common good”, paving the way for the exploitation of the moon without any kind of international treaty.

Supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States, the Artemis agreements were signed in October by Australia, Canada, England, Japan, Luxembourg, Italy and the Emirates.

“Unfortunately, the Trump administration has exacerbated a threat to national security and risked the economic opportunity it hoped for in space by failing to engage Russia or China as potential partners,” says Elya Taichman, former legislative director of then-Republican Michelle Lujan Grisham. Related: Will France Ditch Nuclear Power?

“Instead, the Artemis Accords pushed China and Russia towards increased cooperation in space out of fear and out of necessity,” he writes.

Russian space agency Roscosmos was the first to speak, comparing politics to colonialism.

“There have already been examples in history where a country decided to start seizing territory for its own sake – everyone remembers what happened to that,” the director said at the time. Deputy General of International Cooperation of Roscosmos, Sergey Saveliev.

China, which made history in 2019 by becoming the first country to land a probe on the other side of the Moon, has chosen a different approach. Since the Artemis Accords were first announced, Beijing has approached Russia to jointly build a lunar research base.

President Xi Jinping also made sure that China planted its flag on the moon, which happened in December 2020, more than 50 years after the United States reached the lunar surface.

The next Wild West?

China has always been excluded from the international order in the US-led space. It is not a partner in the International Space Station (ISS) program and a US legislative provision has limited NASA’s ability to cooperate with it in space since 2011.

“America and China should cooperate in space,” say policy experts Anne-Marie Slaughter and Emily Lawrence. “If the United States was successful in coordinating with the Soviet Union on space policy during the Cold War, it can find a way to cooperate with China now,” they note.

Slaughter, former director of policy planning at the US State Department from 2009 to 2011, believes President Joe Biden’s team should distance themselves from Trump’s accords and instead follow a new path in the Committee of Nations United Nations on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

“Biden can restore some of America’s global legitimacy by working to establish a multilateral framework, negotiated with all parties involved, that protects areas of common interest while granting internationally accepted business opportunities,” Slaughter wrote. and Lawrence.

It will not be an easy task, they say, but a necessary task. “Without an international framework that includes all the major space countries, the moon could become the next Wild West.”

The race is on. It’s been a while. So much so that NASA laid out a $ 28 billion plan to launch an unmanned mission around the moon in 2021, followed by a crewed lunar flyover in 2023, then a lunar landing in 2024.

NASA plans to build a permanent base in lunar orbit called the Gateway, similar to the ISS. From there, the agency hopes to build a base on the lunar surface, where it can harness the resources needed to fly the first astronauts to Mars. Related: A Spark of Hope for Oil Markets

Russia has in recent years pursued plans to return to the moon, potentially further out in space.

Roscosmos revealed in 2018 his intention to establish a long-term base on the Moon over the next two decades, while President Vladimir Putin has vowed to launch a mission to Mars “very soon.”

The United States, Russia and China are neither the first nor the only countries to board the lunar mining train.

Luxembourg, one of the first countries to have seen the possibility of exploiting celestial bodies, in 2018 created a Space Agency (LSA) to stimulate the exploration and commercial use of NEO resources.

Unlike NASA, LSA does not search or launch. Its objective is to accelerate collaborations between promoters of economic projects in the space sector, investors and other partners.

The small European nation announced in November its intention to create a European Space Resources Innovation Center (ESRIC), tasked with laying the foundations for the exploitation of extraterrestrial resources.

Luxembourg is also supporting a program to start extracting resources from the Moon by 2025.

The mission, in charge of the European Space Agency in partnership with ArianeGroup, plans to extract nuclear energy without waste, estimated at billions of dollars.

Trillion dollar market

China and India have also pioneered ideas on extracting helium-3 from Earth’s natural satellite. Beijing has landed on the moon twice in the 21st century already, with other missions to follow.

In Canada, most initiatives come from the private sector. One of the most touted was the northern Ontario-based Deltion Innovations partnership with Moon Express, the first private U.S. space exploration company to gain government permission to travel beyond orbit. earthly.

Ongoing space ventures include plans to mine asteroids, track space debris, build the first human settlement on Mars, and billionaire Elon Musk’s own plan for an unmanned mission to the Red Planet.

Geologists, along with emerging companies, such as US-based Planetary Resources, a pioneer in the space mining industry, believe asteroids are filled with iron ore, nickel, and precious metals in much higher concentrations. than those found on Earth, which constitutes a market. valued in the billions.

On December 5, 2020, a metal asteroid 140 miles wide and estimated to be worth 10,000 quadrillion dollars approached our planet.

“With NASA and other companies investing and developing nuclear power for space travel and colonization, the reality of asteroid mining is closer than ever,” says Bob Goldstein, CEO of US Nuclear Corp.

With successful experiences in fusion energy to their credit, the United States Nuclear and Magneto-inertial Fusion Technologies (MIFTI) believes that there are only a few years left to build the first fusion power generator in the United States. world.

Fusion power releases up to four times more energy than fission and uses a lightweight, inexpensive, safe and durable fuel.

A spacecraft with fusion propulsion systems could reach the asteroid belt in as little as seven months. According to Goldstein, it could be powerful enough to transport the asteroid into Earth orbit where it would be much more efficient to mine and transport these precious resources back to Earth.

By Mining.com

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