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Everyone is planning to return to the moon. At least 10 missions by half a dozen nations are scheduled before the end of 2021, and that's only the beginning.
Even though there are international treaties governing outer space, ambiguity remains about how individuals, nations and corporations can use lunar resources.
In all of this, the moon is seen as an inert object with no value in its own right.
But should we treat this celestial object, which has been part of the culture of every hominin for millions of years, as just another resource?
[...] As a thought experiment in how we might regulate lunar exploitation, some have asked whether the moon should be granted legal personhood, which would give it the right to enter into contracts, own property, and sue other persons.
Legal personhood is already extended to many non-human entities: certain rivers, deities in some parts of India, and corporations worldwide. Environmental features can't speak for themselves, so trustees are appointed to act on their behalf, as is the case for the Whanganui River in New Zealand. One proposal is to apply the New Zealand model to the moon.
[...] Can we support the legal concept of personhood for the moon with actual features of personhood?
Journal Reference:
Eytan Tepper, Christopher Whitehead. Moon, Inc.: The New Zealand Model of Granting Legal Personality to Natural Resources Applied to Space, New Space (DOI: 10.1089/space.2018.0025)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @05:07PM (5 children)
In somebody's dreams, maybe.
We can't even get there with just people at the moment.
We're *at least* 40-50 years away from any commercially significant presence on the moon.
I suppose it's not a bad idea to consider the eventuality of mining/commercialization of the moon and its resources, but calling such lunar activity "looming" is, well, loony.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday September 04 2020, @01:25AM (4 children)
I suppose that depends on what you mean by a commercially significant presence.
SpaceX's Starship is making a pretty good argument that we'll be able to land a 5-story building on the moon within the decade, maybe even by 2004, and then fly it back to Earth. Quite possibly more cheaply than we can currently reach orbit. That's going to fundamentally change the accessibility of the moon, and much of the rest of the solar system.
And while the real gold rush will probably be in the asteroid belt rather than on the moon - there's good money to be made by the people selling shovels to prospectors. Or in this case, rocket propellant. Lunar "soil" is ~42% oxygen, and oxygen is ~80% of Starship's propellant mass. Even if Starship manages to lower launch costs to $100/kg in the near term, that's still means there's almost $100 gross profit to be made from every kg oxygen you can extract from the moon - roughly 20x the value of copper on Earth. And $39M every time a Starship fills it's oxygen tank in orbit.
Basically, as soon as we start seriously exploring beyond Earth, there's going to be a compelling market for Lunar oxygen. And the fact that the "mining slag" will be rich in no-longer-oxidized iron, aluminum, and magnesium, will mean oxygen miners will also be in a prime position to foster, and profit from, lunar and orbital industrialization.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2020, @09:54PM (3 children)
AC you replied to here.
You won't get any argument about the above from me.
Well, except for the bit about SpaceX landing on the moon sixteen years ago. I assume that's a typo and you meant 2024, not 2004. And that's certainly reasonable too.
But my quibble isn't with humans *ever* exploiting moon resources. My quibble was with the idea that "lunar mining looms"
loom [merriam-webster.com]:
I have no doubt that at some point, we will exploit the resources of the moon, including mining.
However, claiming that such activity is *looming* is ridiculous. It will take decades to build the infrastructure and environment to make that possible in a commercially significant way.
You and I will both likely be dead of old age before that happens. So no, lunar mining doesn't "loom." I wish it did, but it doesn't.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday September 05 2020, @09:08PM (2 children)
Nah man, Starship is going to be so awesome it's going to be able to fly back in time, everybody knows that! Either that, or I mis-typed 2024 - but that just seems implausible.
I would consider a decade or two to be "looming" for large-scale projects. New nuclear power plants routinely take that long to get approved and built. And establishing international regulations for lunar exploitation could easily take a big slice of that. Meanwhile, few people will be willing to invest the resources necessary to actually do the job if there's a threat of unspecified regulations hovering over their business. And a market is going to exist immediately upon beginning to send Starships beyond orbit. Not a big one initially, maybe only a few hundred million $ a year to start with, but it will probably grow quickly.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday September 05 2020, @09:28PM (1 child)
"Lunar mining" is pretty non-specific. There's probably nothing stopping it from happening in the 2030s, but it probably wouldn't be an industrial activity, just minor research stuff.
Asteroid mining could be pursued more immediately, if someone puts in the work to figure out how to exploit the resources in space, or better yet, land them on Earth. Of course, cheap $/kg Starship launches are needed to make any of this profitable.
I am even more generous with "looms". The Moon has been seen as sacred, etc. for all of human history, and on that timeframe, big changes are coming to the Moon in mere decades. Although it would take some serious human activity to affect how the Moon looks to the naked eye, and we could agree to concentrate most activity on the poles and the far side (manned bases at the poles, giant radio telescopes on the far side).
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday September 05 2020, @10:23PM
Mining asteroids is definitely where the big high-stakes money is at - but to do that we're going to need to send a lot of rockets worth of supplies to the asteroid belt. Which means demand for a whole lot of rocket fuel in Earth orbit at $50M a tank.
In comparison, mining the moon for oxygen to propel the rockets going to the asteroid belt rockets is the simple, reliable money - akin to the people making reliable money shelling shovels to prospectors. Dump (powdered?) sand into reactor vessel, extract oxygen, purify, liquefy.