Colonization of the Moon

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NASA concept art of an envisioned lunar mining facility Lunar base concept drawing s99 04195.jpg
NASA concept art of an envisioned lunar mining facility

Colonization of the Moon is a process [1] or concept employed by some proposals for robotic [2] [3] or human exploitation and settlement endeavours on the Moon. Settling of the Moon is, therefore, a more specific concept of lunar habitation, for which the broader concept of colonization is often used as a synonym, a use that is contested in the light of colonialism. [4]

Contents

Laying claim to the Moon has been declared illegal through international space 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 building moonbases for exploration and to a lesser extent for exploitation of lunar resources.

The commercialization of the Moon is a contentious issue for national and international lunar regulation and laws (such as the Moon treaty). [6]

History

Colonization of the Moon has been imagined as early as the first half of the 17th century by John Wilkins in A Discourse Concerning a New Planet. [7] [8]

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 the Soviet Union on the Moon, and U.S. flags were symbolically planted at their landing sites by the Apollo astronauts, but no nation claims ownership of any part of the Moon's surface. [9] Russia, China, India, and the U.S. are party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, [10] which defines the Moon and all outer space as the "province of all mankind", [9] restricting the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes and explicitly banning military installations and weapons of mass destruction from the Moon. [11]

The landing of U.S. astronauts was seen as a precedent for the superiority of the free-market socioeconomic model of the U.S., and in this case as the successful model for space flight, exploration and ultimately human presence in the form of colonization. In the 1970s the word and goal of colonization was discouraged by NASA and funds as well as focus shifted away from the Moon and particularly to Mars. But the U.S. eventually nevertheless opposed the 1979 Moon Agreement which aimed to restrict the exploitation of the Moon and its resources. Subsequently, the treaty has been signed and ratified by only 18 nations, as of January 2020, [12] none of which engage in self-launched human space exploration.

Artemis base camp as imagined in 2020 Artemis Base Camp.png
Artemis base camp as imagined in 2020

After U.S. missions in the 1990s suggested the presence of lunar water ice, its actual discovery in the soil at the lunar poles by Chandrayaan-1 (ISRO) in 2008–2009 renewed interest in the Moon. [13] A range of moonbases have been proposed by states and public actors. Currently the U.S.-led international Artemis 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-called International Lunar Research Station to be established in the 2030s and aim for an Earth-Moon Space Economic Zone to develop by 2050. [14]

A vision of a future Moon base that could be produced and maintained using 3D printing as imagined in 2018 Future Moon base.jpg
A vision of a future Moon base that could be produced and maintained using 3D printing as imagined in 2018

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 as colonialist and contrasted by proposals for conservation (e.g. by the organization For All Moonkind), [15] collaborative stewardship (e.g. by the organization Open Lunar Foundation, chaired by Chris Hadfield) [16] and the Declaration of the Rights of the Moon, [17] drawing on the concept of the Rights of Nature for a legal personality of non-human entities in space. [18]

Missions

Far from being a colony, the temporary Tranquility Base of the first crewed mission to the Moon in 1969, as well as its successor camps of the Apollo missions, has been the closest to a colony on the Moon so far.

Before and since then a permanent human presence through colonization of the Moon has been pursued and advocated for by a range of civil actors and space advocacy groups. But most importantly different countries have been putting forward concepts and plans for not only new crewed expeditions, but also for moonbases.

The pursued purpose of such moonbases is broad, but is mostly for space exploration, but also for exploiting and commercializing the Moon and advocating for a lunar and cis-lunar infrastructure, economy and settled society.

The most advanced contemporary missions share this spectrum of purpose, between exploration and exploitation. For example, the leading Artemis program and International Lunar Research Station projects, while focusing on exploration, they do both mention prospecting for lunar resource extraction for in-situ resource utilization as an objective, [19] in the case of the American policy including that the Artemis program should furthermore enable resource commercialization and private enterprise. [13]

These bases are planned to be crewed, but only eventually permanently. Commercial proposals though have suggested building and use of moonbases for tourism and possibly settlement.

Law

This section is an excerpt from Moon § Legal status.[ edit ]

Although Luna landers scattered pennants of the Soviet Union on the Moon, and U.S. flags were symbolically planted at their landing sites by the Apollo astronauts, no nation claims ownership of any part of the Moon's surface. [20] Likewise no private ownership of parts of the Moon, or as a whole, is considered credible. [21] [22] [23]

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty defines the Moon and all outer space as the "province of all mankind". [20] It restricts the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes, explicitly banning military installations and weapons of mass destruction. [24] A majority of countries are parties of this treaty. [25] The 1979 Moon Agreement was created to elaborate, and restrict the exploitation of the Moon's resources by any single nation, leaving it to a yet unspecified international regulatory regime. [26] As of January 2020, it has been signed and ratified by 18 nations, [27] none of which have human spaceflight capabilities.

Since 2020, countries have joined the U.S. in their Artemis Accords, which are challenging the treaty. The U.S. has furthermore emphasized in a presidential executive 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." [28] [29]

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. [30] In this light an Implementation 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. [31] [32]

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 [33] and interest groups have argued for making such sites World Heritage Sites [34] and zones of scientific value protected zones, all of which add to the legal availability and territorialization of the Moon. [35]

In 2021, the Declaration of the Rights of the Moon [36] was created by a group of "lawyers, space archaeologists and concerned citizens", drawing on precedents in the Rights of Nature movement and the concept of legal personality for non-human entities in space. [37] [38]

Economic prospecting and development

Artist's impression from 2023 of peering out from a giant lava tube with a moon base inside; such an arrangement would provide protection from cosmic rays, solar flares, and meteor strikes Giant lava tunnel with a moon base inside.png
Artist's impression from 2023 of peering out from a giant lava tube with a moon base inside; such an arrangement would provide protection from cosmic rays, solar flares, and meteor strikes

For long-term sustainability, a space colony should be close to self-sufficient. Mining and refining 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. [39]

Space-based materials processing

In the long term, the Moon will likely play an important role in supplying space-based construction facilities with raw materials. [40] 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 is annealed slowly. On Earth, gas bubbles may rise or fall due to their relative density to air, but in a zero gravity environment this does not happen. The annealing 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 through radiative heat loss.

Exporting material to Earth

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 is helium-3 (3He) which is carried by the solar wind and accumulated on the Moon's surface over billions of years, but occurs only rarely on Earth. [41] Helium-3 might be present in the lunar 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 of gold and over eight times the value of rhodium.

In the future 3He harvested from the Moon may have a role as a fuel in thermonuclear fusion reactors. [41] [42] 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. [43]

In 2024, an American startup called Interlune announced plans to mine Helium on the Moon for export to Earth. The first mission plans to use NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program to arrive on the moon. [44]

Exporting propellant obtained from lunar water

To reduce the cost of transport, the Moon could store propellants produced from lunar water at one or several depots between the Earth and the Moon, to resupply rockets or satellites in Earth orbit. [45]

Lunar water ice

Video of the lunar south pole, showing areas of permanent shadow over several months (several lunar 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 in minerals, but scattered throughout the broken-up surface, and, potentially, in blocks or sheets of ice at depth." The results from the Chandrayaan mission are also "offering a wide array of watery signals." [46] [47]

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. [48]

Solar power satellites

Gerard K. O'Neill, noting the problem of high launch costs in the early 1970s, proposed building Solar Power Satellites in orbit with materials from the Moon. [49] 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 30 April 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. [50]

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. [51] This 1980s SPS concept relied less on human presence in space and more on partially self-replicating systems on the lunar surface under telepresence control of workers stationed on Earth.

See also

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References

Notes

  1. ↑ Marc Ferro (1997). Colonization. Routledge. p. 1. doi:10.4324/9780203992586. ISBN   9780203992586."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 the Greek period. Likewise we speak of Athenian, then Roman 'imperialism'."
  2. ↑ "Japan vs. NASA in the Next Space Race: Lunar Robonauts". Fast Company. May 28, 2010. Retrieved June 12, 2015.
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  9. 1 2 "Can any State claim a part of outer space as its own?". United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. Archived from the original on April 21, 2010. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
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  12. ↑ "Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies". United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. Archived from the original on August 9, 2010. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
  13. 1 2 Alvarez, Tamara (January 1, 2020). The Eighth Continent: An Ethnography of Twenty-First Century Euro-American Plans to Settle the Moon (Thesis). p. 59. Archived from the original on February 5, 2022. Retrieved November 1, 2021.
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  20. 1 2 "Can any State claim a part of outer space as its own?". United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. Archived from the original on April 21, 2010. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
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  25. ↑ "How many States have signed and ratified the five international treaties governing outer space?". United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. January 1, 2006. Archived from the original on April 21, 2010. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
  26. ↑ "The Space Review: Is outer space a de jure common-pool resource?". The Space Review. October 25, 2021. Archived from the original on November 2, 2021. Retrieved April 9, 2022.
  27. ↑ "Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies". United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. Archived from the original on August 9, 2010. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
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  29. ↑ "Administration Statement on Executive Order on Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources" (Press release). White House. April 6, 2020. Archived from the original on February 1, 2024. Retrieved June 17, 2020– via SpaceRef.
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  32. ↑ "The Space Treaty Institute – Dedicated to Peace and Sustainability in Outer Space. Our Mission: To give people Hope and Inspiration by helping the nations of Earth to build a Common Future". The Space Treaty Institute – Dedicated to Peace and Sustainability in Outer Space. Our Mission. Archived from the original on February 1, 2022. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
  33. ↑ "'One Small Step' Act Encourages Protection of Human Heritage in Space". HowStuffWorks. January 12, 2021. Archived from the original on November 1, 2021. Retrieved November 1, 2021.
  34. ↑ "Moonkind – Human Heritage in Outer Space". For All Moonkind. Archived from the original on November 1, 2021. Retrieved November 1, 2021.
  35. ↑ Alvarez, Tamara (January 1, 2020). The Eighth Continent: An Ethnography of Twenty-First Century Euro-American Plans to Settle the Moon (Thesis). p. 109-115, 164–167, 176. Archived from the original on February 5, 2022. Retrieved November 1, 2021.
  36. ↑ "Declaration of the Rights of the Moon". Australian Earth Laws Alliance. February 11, 2021. Archived from the original on April 23, 2021. Retrieved May 10, 2021.
  37. ↑ Tepper, Eytan; Whitehead, Christopher (December 1, 2018). "Moon, Inc.: The New Zealand Model of Granting Legal Personality to Natural Resources Applied to Space". New Space. 6 (4): 288–298. Bibcode:2018NewSp...6..288T. doi:10.1089/space.2018.0025. ISSN   2168-0256. S2CID   158616075. Archived from the original on June 28, 2021. Retrieved July 30, 2022.
  38. ↑ Evans, Kate (July 20, 2021). "Hear Ye! Hear Ye! A Declaration of the Rights of the Moon". Eos. Archived from the original on February 6, 2022. Retrieved April 9, 2022.
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  40. ↑ "Lunar base". RussianSpaceWeb.com. Retrieved December 24, 2006.
  41. 1 2 Mark Williams Pontin, Mining the Moon. MIT Technology Review. August 23, 2007.
  42. ↑ "FTI Research". Archived from the original on June 9, 2010. Retrieved September 30, 2014.
  43. ↑ Kazmi, Shameem. "Moon Mining: Myth or reality?". earthtimes.org. Retrieved June 12, 2015.
  44. ↑ Eaton, Kit (March 14, 2024). "Space Startup Interlune Emerges From Stealth Mode to Start Moon Mining Effort".
  45. ↑ Spudis, Paul D.; Lavoie, Anthony R. (September 29, 2011). "Using the resources of the Moon to create a permanent, cislunar space faring system" (PDF). AIAA Space 2011 Conference & Exposition. 1646: 80. Bibcode:2011LPICo1646...80S.
  46. ↑ "It's not lunacy, probes find water in Moon dirt". USA Today. September 23, 2009. Retrieved September 26, 2009.
  47. ↑ "Water discovered on Moon?: "A lot of it actually"". The Hindu . September 23, 2009. Archived from the original on September 26, 2009. Retrieved September 26, 2009.
  48. ↑ Bill Keeter: NASA Radar Finds Ice Deposits at Moon's North Pole – Additional evidence of water activity on moon Archived September 21, 2015, at the Wayback Machine . National Aeronautics and Space Administration, March 2, 2010, retrieved June 27, 2011
  49. ↑ O'Neill, Gerard K. (1977). The High Frontier, Human Colonies in Space. Apogee Books. p. 57. ISBN   978-0-688-03133-6.
  50. ↑ General Dynamics Convair Division (1979). Lunar Resources Utilization for Space Construction (PDF). GDC-ASP79-001.
  51. ↑ O'Neill, Gerard K.; Driggers, G.; O'Leary, B. (October 1980). "New Routes to Manufacturing in Space". Astronautics and Aeronautics. 18: 46–51. Bibcode:1980AsAer..18...46G.

General references

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