Artemis Agreement: towards the privatization of space resources?
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The Artemis Accord paves the way for the conquest of the resources of outer space.
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By: Claire Fages Follow
5 mins
At the initiative of the United States, eight countries have just signed the Artemis agreement, named after the next American expedition to the Moon, scheduled for 2023. This new legal text authorizes the exploitation and private possession of resources from space.
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Like the Homestead Act that launched the conquest of the American West in the 19th century, the Artemis Agreement paves the way for the conquest of the resources of space.
The initiative comes from NASA.
The American space agency is preparing an expedition to the Moon to set up a permanent base there, a stage before the great trip to Mars.
It intends to extract and use on site the natural resources it will need.
Metals such as iron and titanium have been identified in greater quantities than expected on the Moon, and especially ice, which will provide water, oxygen and hydrogen to the human communities that will settle there. .
Ice and metals
But who owns these raw materials?
The 1967 space treaty did resolve the problem of ownership of planets and celestial bodies: no state can claim sovereignty, but it does not address the issue of their resources.
The 1979 treaty requires an equitable distribution of resources among all states, with special attention to developing countries, but it was not signed by any space power.
This is what allowed private American companies to step into the breach.
From 2015, Planetary Resources publicly exposed its ambitions for space raw materials.
The then US president, Barack Obama, even gave them legal bail with the Space Act, which allowed them to extract, possess, transport, use and sell space resources.
United States offers safe zones
Today, the Trump administration is going further with a text proposed to other states, which authorizes the creation of a "safe zone" to protect the activities of countries and private companions on a celestial body.
No major space nation has signed, not China, France or Russia.
Moscow considers Artemis to be too American-centric an initiative.
But seven states have already initialed the document: Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.
Among them, some have already shown their interest in the private exploitation of space resources.
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