Two astronauts collect soil samples on the alien planet (Shutterstock)

If you landed on the moon today and took a sweeping survey of the landscape, you would encounter a patchwork of American, Chinese and Russian flags on its dusty surface. Yet these national symbols have little weight when it comes to claims to territory and territorial jurisdiction in this area, because international conditions stipulate No country may claim territory in outer space or any celestial body.

Such places are “the property of all mankind,” according to the Outer Space Treaty regulating the activities of states in the field of exploration and use of celestial resources, which the United States and several other countries signed in 1967. But debate continues over whether the treaty prohibits private industry. Working in outer space, especially space mining.

The richness of space

The solar system contains resources that humanity is only beginning to understand, including about 200 asteroids more than 100 kilometers in diameter, slightly larger than a country like Egypt, and government and private companies and divisions within companies have formed in the hope of extracting them.

Asteroids are not just pieces of ice and rock that may spell the end of the Earth, as the science fiction movie “Armageddon” recounts, but they contain huge reserves of precious and industrial metals, such as platinum, gold, nickel, and cobalt. There are more than a million asteroids that astronomers are tracking, most of which are located within the asteroid belt between... Mars and Jupiter.

A single 500-meter-diameter asteroid contains more platinum than has ever been mined in Earth's history, and there are more than two million space rocks orbiting in the asteroid belt as well, with an estimated $1 billion worth of platinum in each one, including gold, iron and nickel. Water and other valuable elements can be found there.

According to NASA, the entire asteroid belt contains mineral wealth that could reach about 700 quintillion dollars (seven followed by 20 zeros, so one quintillion equals one million trillion), which means 100 billion dollars for every one of the Earth’s inhabitants.

The most valuable asteroid in the belt is Davida, which is the seventh largest asteroid in the system, with a diameter of 326 kilometers, and is estimated to contain minerals worth $27 quintillion, along with nitrogen, ammonia and hydrogen, according to Business Insider in June. 2021.

An imaginary depiction of a NASA spacecraft preparing to take a sample from the asteroid (NASA)

Unlike most icy or rocky asteroids, the 140-mile-diameter asteroid formed between Mars and Jupiter called 16 Psyche, or the “Golden Asteroid,” was discovered in March 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis; From a composition of precious metals iron, nickel and gold.

Last October, NASA launched a space probe on a long journey of more than three billion kilometers to explore this mineral-rich asteroid. The probe is expected to reach the asteroid in the summer of 2029, which is the first time that humans have visited an asteroid with a metallic surface.

If the asteroid's fortunes are confirmed, it could be worth $10 quintillion, much more than the global economy, which was worth about $84.5 trillion in 2020 according to Forbes.

Other reasons why space cannot be ignored include; Potential competition for natural resources in space. The moon, for example, provides huge quantities of rare earth metals needed to make batteries, electronic tools, and advanced military equipment. Since China has a near monopoly on the production of these resources, and plans to extract them elsewhere on Earth are moving slowly, there is geopolitical interest in their lunar provenance.

Because lunar ice can be converted into hydrogen and oxygen to produce rocket fuel, this would allow space missions to refuel there without having to carry all their propellant from Earth, which is one reason for the rush to return to the moon to claim a share in the water there, says a project manager. Aerospace at the University of Portsmouth Lucinda King.

It is expected that competition for control of the moon will increase between space powers - such as the United States, Russia and China - to establish bases there, especially if the moon becomes a potential gas station in space that can help explorers reach a greater distance in the solar system, and to do this, NASA says It needs astronauts to "live in space" using resources found there rather than transporting them from Earth.

Space may also be part of Earth's climate change solutions. Although most renewable energy sources on Earth can only be harnessed intermittently, solar power plants in fixed orbit may be able to do so 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The possibility of obtaining cheap, clean, and unlimited energy will be reason enough to reach space. China has announced plans to deploy solar power plants in space by 2035, but the technology necessary to achieve economic feasibility still needs to be developed.

The new space race

With all these coveted resources, it is not clear who can actually claim them as a group of countries led by the United States seeks to encourage a growing space mining industry, which could challenge long-standing assumptions about ownership of the solar system by “all of humanity.”

Historically, at the height of the Cold War between the United States, the Soviet Union and their allies, about 60 countries signed the Outer Space Treaty, which banned the militarization of space and prevented spacefaring countries from claiming ownership of these resources.

Article 2 of the treaty stipulates that “national appropriation of outer space and its contents shall not be permitted under the pretext of sovereignty, through use or occupation, or by any other means.” The Treaty also makes clear that any non-governmental entity (such as astronauts) operating in space must first obtain special approval from its national government and follow all the rules of the Treaty. Some opponents argued that this would invoke Article II, preventing private companies from collecting their rocks.

Industry advocates point instead to Article 1, which states that space “shall be open to exploration and use by all nations without discrimination of any kind,” and say Article 2 only applies to nations, not private companies.

In the past, space was largely the preserve of governments, but a new arena for commercial operators - such as Elon Musk's SpaceX, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic - is now working alongside industry. General.

Unsurprisingly, these companies are often more competitive, and perhaps aggressive, when it comes to pushing the boundaries of space exploration and commercialization, with Morgan Stanley's space team estimating that global space activity could generate $1 trillion in annual revenues by 2017. 2040, up from $350 billion today.

Of course, the United States has contenders for supremacy in space. As of 2019, 72 countries claim active space programs and 14 have launch capabilities.

Although the United States was the leader in this field, China's space program - fueled by the country's growing economic power - has been progressing since Washington retired the Space Shuttle Discovery program in 2011 after 27 years of flying in outer space.

India, in turn, wants to participate in this process. In February 2021, the UAE also launched a spacecraft (the Hope Probe) to join the American and Chinese missions traveling to Mars. In this regard, we do not exclude the Russians, the United States’ first competitors in space.

In the 1970s and 1980s, countries signed the “Moon Agreement,” which stipulates that the Moon and its resources are the common heritage of humanity (Shutterstock)

Controversy of international agreements

Countries such as Japan, Luxembourg, the UAE, and the United States have issued laws enshrining private property rights over space resources in the context of stimulating commercial mining there. The United States began this trend in 2015 during the era of former US President Barack Obama, who signed a law allowing private companies the right to own the resources they extract. In space, which opened the door to civil space work.

In 2018, China launched a reconnaissance rover on the far side of the moon, which has been collecting data for more than 18 months now. In late 2019, then-President Donald Trump launched the formation of the US Space Force as part of the military, while early 2020 saw NASA sign a contract with Axiom Space to build the first commercial space station. Trump strengthened the issue by issuing an executive order in 2020 establishing a national policy to encourage “public and private space mining and use of resources in outer space consistent with applicable law.”

The order also condemns the so-called “Moon Treaty,” an agreement signed by a group of countries not including the United States in the 1970s and 1980s that reaffirms and explains many of the provisions of the Outer Space Treaty as applied to the Moon and other celestial bodies, and states that the Moon and its resources Natural resources are the common heritage of humankind, and an international regime should be established to govern the exploitation of these resources when such exploitation is about to become possible.

In October 2020, the Trump administration also led the signing of the “Artemis Accords” with 8 countries, a group of bilateral agreements governing behavior in space and control of celestial bodies such as the Moon. The rules allow private companies to extract lunar resources and create safe zones to prevent conflicts and ensure... Countries act transparently about their plans in space, while sharing their scientific discoveries.

In this international agreement, Washington deliberately circumvented the United Nations, as it reflects the interpretation favored by the United States that Article 2 does not apply to private industry, and as of December 2022, 23 countries and one region have joined the agreements, but the group did not include Russia and China, competitors. United States major players in space.

According to Foreign Policy, although this agreement claims to affirm the Outer Space Treaty, it actually increases the potential for conflict by broadening the interpretation of commercial space law while drawing difficult geopolitical boundaries. Without the participation of Russia and especially China, much of the world will view the Artemis Accords as an informal rule book for an introverted club rather than a true multilateral agreement.

An imaginary depiction of Artemis program astronauts on the moon (NASA)

Private ownership of space resources... a new problem

If a private space mining company traveled to the Sea of ​​Tranquility, an area where US astronaut Neil Armstrong landed, collected lunar rocks and returned to Earth, would it have full ownership rights over it, and would the company have violated international law?

Just like all travelers, the astronauts who walked on the moon were determined to bring with them memories in the form of a lot of moon rocks, which amounted to 2,196 lunar samples, with a mass of 382 kilograms, collected from the six Apollo missions in just a few days over the course of 4 years. However, scientists took decades to study them, and NASA keeps about 85% of these rocks, and the rest of them faced different fates.

Apollo rocks are not the only samples found on the surface of the Earth. The Soviet Union led three robotic missions that brought with them their own samples from the Moon, but they are much smaller than the samples of the Apollo missions and are equivalent to only 0.3 kilograms.

As part of its mission to explore the Moon, NASA is working to persuade countries around the world to adopt the Artemis Accords, and is now trying to return astronauts to the Moon under its own program for the first time since 1972. Unlike the Apollo Program, where astronauts visited Space the Moon's surface for a short period before returning home, the "Artemis Program" will create a permanent presence on and around the Moon.

Under the announced program, just two months after the agreements were signed, in December 2020, NASA announced that several private companies had won contracts to mine the moon and deliver small samples to the space agency for a small fee, which is still a controversial topic.

In one case, it seems that one dollar is enough to buy a small sample of rocks and soil from the moon, but it cannot buy you a cup of coffee. A company called Lunar Outpost submitted a bid for the small sum, which NASA agreed to after deciding that the Colorado-based robotics company had the technical capacity to deliver.

In addition to Lunar Outpost, the other companies selected for the NASA program are: the Japanese and European branches of the private company "I Space", which will each receive $5,000 for the small sample, and Masten Space Systems in California, which will receive $15,000, making the total $25,001. All companies are already on the moon - according to NASA - to carry out other missions.

The mining announcement came during the same week that China landed a spacecraft on the moon, extracted the resources and then blasted off from the lunar surface in an attempt to return the sample to Earth. But for NASA, instead of developing and sustaining a large government mission to obtain moon rocks, the agency took another approach by partnering with the private sector.

But modest financial incentives aren't driving the program, nor is actual lunar soil, by and large. NASA requires only small quantities (between 50 and 500 grams). Although there will be scientific benefits to the mission, it is actually a technology development program, allowing companies to practice extracting resources from the surface of the moon and then selling them. It will also set a legal precedent that will pave the way for companies to extract celestial bodies in an effort that the US government blesses to help... In building a sustainable presence on the Moon and elsewhere.

However, NASA officials said the effort would not violate the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits countries from claiming sovereignty over a celestial body. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has previously likened the policy to “the rules that govern the seas,” and said: “We believe we can "Extract and use the moon's resources, just as we can extract and use tuna from the ocean."

Since then, the first contracts have provided only a small amount of funding, and many companies have faced financial or technical problems. Earlier in 2023, the Hector R lander of the private Japanese company I Space, which also carried the explorer, crashed. Emirati "Rashid", in the moon, leaving behind a small hole.

One way to control the value of metals is to control supply, meaning that space mining will not make anyone richer than Bezos and Musk unless they can create their own monopoly (Shutterstock)

Who controls the metals of the future?

In November 2022, the Japanese government allowed the private company ISpace to conduct commercial activities on the Moon, including extracting minerals and selling them to NASA for later profit within the general framework of the Artemis Agreements.

This license obtained by "I Space" is the first license to extract and sell space resources granted under the Japanese Space Resources Law, and the first case of using space resources commercially, and "I Space" is already planning to return to the moon through its second and third lunar missions, which are expected to be completed. Launching in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

Meanwhile, a new space race is heating up. In addition to unmanned missions to Mars this year, both the United States and China are planning to land on the moon later this decade, but they are ignoring the many technical challenges facing space mining, such as the need for robots. Spacecraft and other technologies that do not exist in our time today, and controlling these resources will not make any country or person rich overnight.

It is possible that metals will be extracted from asteroids at some point in the future, but once those metals start hitting the market here on Earth, the influx of supply will likely depress their prices, and gold, platinum, and other metals will no longer be considered “precious” because they will not be rare.

Moreover, metals are not expensive because of their inherent value, they are expensive because of the value they provide. Steel, for example, is just steel because it can be used to make parts for cars, and silver has become more expensive because of its use in solar panels.

A giant asteroid full of gold could finance existing industries on the planet, but it is unlikely to lead to a new industrial revolution. Just because asteroid mining will provide more gold, it does not mean that demand will rise.

This is exactly why American billionaire Elon Musk is willing to bet on cryptocurrencies, and according to his vision, asteroid mining could reduce gold's status as a store of wealth.

One way to control the value of minerals is to control supply, and this means that space mining will not make anyone richer than Bezos and Musk unless he can create his own monopoly, as happens with diamonds that De Beers globally acquires, and the Oppenheimer family was able to Control it and maintain its monopoly over the diamond sector globally.

As on Earth, the lack of international standards in space is likely to lead to chaotic competition between major nations. For example, a 2011 US law prohibiting NASA from cooperating with Chinese agencies led to To prevent China from participating in the American-Russian International Space Station, which prompted the Chinese to begin building their own station while partnering with Russia in the lunar research station.

Unregulated space activity can create a myriad of problems, ranging from accidental or intentional blocking of data transmission, to orbital contamination from too many space objects. Indeed, American companies are currently the worst offenders, which highlights the need for more targeted regulation.

Just a few uncontrolled collisions could generate enough conflict to render near-Earth space unusable, and of course no one wants to see space armed with escalating and very expensive arms races.

Such a dispute could lead to lawsuits "in the near future," according to the International Bar Association's January bulletin. No one yet knows whether states will recognize another state's claim to space resources or consider it a violation of Article II.

Source: Al Jazeera + websites