NASA Wants To Mine The Moon, But Law Experts Say It's Not That Simple:
Exploration in the outer reaches of our solar system and beyond is often the subject of science fiction. Space exploration is a common theme in the genre, and millions of readers flock to new titles in this space on a regular basis — SFWA noted that those who say they read science fiction amounted to about 21% of the U.S. population.
[...] The first roadblock facing humans as we seek to expand our presence in the solar system lies in technology. NASA reports that it takes about seven months (measured in Earth days) to travel from our planet's surface to Mars. Thrillist notes that travel to the Moon only requires a three-day journey, while exploration of Jupiter or Saturn (the next bodies out from Mars) would require a lengthy, six- or seven-year voyage, respectively. On a technical level, our current means of launching satellites and humans at these distant bodies is exactly that, a launch (via NASA). In order to make space travel more feasible for human explorers, we would need to develop a propulsion system that could continually deliver powered flight to a spacecraft, or at least the ability to continually augment flight speed, rather than simply relying on initial launch velocity to carry the craft along to its final destination.
[...] A secondary roadblock stands in the way of human exploitation in regard to these extraterrestrial resources. During the Cold War, great efforts were undertaken by the United States and the Soviet Union to explore distant planets and the Moon. The politics of space exploration are complicated, but suffice to say, world leaders across the globe quickly became worried about the potential for conflict expanding beyond the boundaries of our world. For one thing, warfare in outer space would place human lives in grave jeopardy. But one natural extent of this conflict would be the ability to simply drop ordnance directly over combatant nations (via U.S. Naval War College), threatening to eviscerate the planet in the process. As a result, more than 100 countries including the United States and Russia have signed an agreement barring claims of sovereignty beyond the physical territory of the planet Earth, according to the United Nations.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 08 2022, @01:29PM (2 children)
We were here first!
Mine! Mine! Mine! ?
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday October 08 2022, @03:15PM (1 child)
Well, the only flags ever planted on the moon are US flags... unless of course you think it was all fake.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday October 10 2022, @03:07PM
https://www.space.com/china-flag-on-moon-chang-e-5-lunar-landing [space.com]
China did it with a robot.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by oumuamua on Saturday October 08 2022, @01:44PM (4 children)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/07/trump-mining-moon-executive-order [theguardian.com]
Or is this being legally challenged?
Either way it is going to be the Old West, who ever stakes claim first by actually building something, gets it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 08 2022, @03:04PM (1 child)
Which really is the best process out there. And given that we already have a history with this (the "Old West" of the US), we know what the problems with it are too.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday October 10 2022, @03:11PM
Perhaps, but shooting guns on the moon, seems like a stupid idea. Perhaps they could agree on a less gruesome form of fighting, like paint balls or laser tag or something.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday October 08 2022, @11:24PM (1 child)
It's orders of magnitude simpler to destroy a claim in space than to defend it.
So, no, there gonna be no Old West. That's for sure. What it will be I have no idea.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 08 2022, @11:31PM
Maybe for an asteroid that's ten meters in diameter, it would be easy. But it'll take a lot of boom to get rid of the Moon.
OTOH, destroying infrastructure might be a different story. Depends on how much work it takes to get there versus how much to build the infrastructure. If I were a hostile alien race a thousand light-years away, it'll take a lot more work to send a war fleet to the Solar System, and whack everyone here now, than it would for humanity to build everything it has so far.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 08 2022, @02:35PM (3 children)
See "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by R. Heinlein if you have any questions.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Saturday October 08 2022, @05:19PM (1 child)
Fiction is a really poor guide to what will happen. "Macbeth", e.g., was recounting (with stylistic changes) some Scots history. But the Scots history took place over a timeline of 20 years or so. And note that that was history, not stories set in the future.
I'm not sure it's possible to set up a self-sufficient colony on the Moon. It ought to be, but this hasn't been proven. If it can't be set up, then forget independence. I suspect it may need a population larger than can be held. (E.g., you'll need to be able to raise your own experts on Fission reactors, specialty steels, medicine, etc. And each one of those involves LOTS of sub-specialties.) Now you've got to hold onto your experts, avoid making anyone so unhappy they figure they should destroy everything, etc.
The Moon may be too close to Earth for that to be practical. (Well, until there are HUGE improvements in both sociology and virtual reality. Possibly also psychology and AI.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Username on Sunday October 09 2022, @06:10AM
I think long term residents of the moon will genetically adapt and evolve to live on the moon, which will solve the population problem. The new species of humans will be brought about by a tremendous amount of genetic aberrations and miscarriages in a few hundred years. In my brain the final humans will be about 3ft tall and weight about 15lb. They will be incredibly skinny. Like an elongated baby. Thousands of this species can live in the area occupied by hundreds of homosapiens. The road down this path will be brutal. The first residents of the moon will die very young, and their offspring even younger. During this time a lot of information will be lost, and will require some kind of robot overlord, the caretaker, to keep society functioning until this new society of metasapiens reaches homeostasis. At this point the caretaker would be breaking down, and the mooninites will have to start learning from it to survive.
This story depends on terrans not interfering in the development, they will need a giant war of some kind to keep them distracted. Otherwise they'd be aborting metasapiens, and bringing in homosapiens all the time. Probably enforcing therapies to keep the population in line with their terra prime counterparts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2022, @10:47AM
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday October 08 2022, @02:56PM
The catch is renegotiating the parts that the US would want to keep (liability in space, militarization constraints, nukes in orbit, etc).
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 08 2022, @03:06PM (13 children)
The idea that earthlings can decree laws for space is ludicrous. That crap goes right back to colonialism.
If 9 billion earthlings vote that there can be no mining on the moon, but the 150 people on the moon actually need the stuff beneath the crater, those 150 votes win over the 9 billion. It's really that simple. Ditto for Mars, the asteroids, and everything beyond.
Don't get me wrong, if earth decrees, the people out there will obey, for awhile. Just for so long as they are entirely dependent on earth for supplies. Once they have food production up and running reliably, once they can produce most of what they need, earth laws will be mostly meaningless.
At that point in time, it will be necessary to negotiate treaties.
"Hey, Moonies!"
"Whadday want, Earthings?"
"Hey, it would be nice if you didn't disturb our first lunar landing site."
"What's it worth to you?"
"Uhhhhh, how about we knock 95% off the price of any medical supplies you guys want?"
"That sounds pretty good. Throw in a metric ton of Victoria's Secret goods for our ladies, and we've got a deal! Specific items, sizes, colors, etc to be transmitted at our convenience. And, don't screw us over with tents made by Omar, because we can always go out and wreck your precious site!"
Hmmmm - how many negligees are there in a metric ton?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday October 08 2022, @04:28PM (6 children)
Has anyone investigated just how long it would take for a moon colony to be self-sustaining?
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 08 2022, @04:48PM (3 children)
It will take more than a decade, I'm sure. But, many of our members would be alive to see it happen, if we started a colony within this decade. I'm not waiting for any government to do it, and neither is Musk, or any of the other rich bastids who might see a profit in it. All we need is a profit motive, and it will happen. (Yes, I realize that Musk has his sights on Mars, but he may well be instrumental in colonizing the moon as well.)
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday October 08 2022, @09:23PM (1 child)
Are there any nations on Earth which are totally independent and self sustaining? How many can make their own ICs, and their own lithography machines with which to make them?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2022, @01:51AM
Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese [wikipedia.org]
Not sure how long they'd last on the moon though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2022, @01:53AM
> It will take more than a decade, I'm sure.
It will also take more than 1 day. Whatever, 1 day, 1 decade, 1 thousand years, it's all the same ballpark compared to how long it will really take.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday October 08 2022, @05:23PM (1 child)
That depends on the time frame you're looking at. If you want it to be really self-sustaining it needs to be replacing the experts in all the fields it depends on to keep working. That's going to take a rather large population, or a really advanced AI. (Among other things. The US isn't self-sustaining, though it probably could be, at least for awhile.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday October 08 2022, @05:30PM
Self-sustaining enough so that if Earth's space-launch facilities suddenly were to become nonfunctional they would have the resources to improvise themselves into survival.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 08 2022, @07:52PM
There are no people living on Mars. And therefore, there is no one to be colonized out there. Any colony would be on uninhabited places because all places are uninhabited.
Now some Earth people coming there may one day declare independence, but that's a different thing.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday October 08 2022, @11:34PM (4 children)
It's not gonna happen unless space folks have significant leverage over earthlings. Space folks could be easily destroyed. What could they do? Say there is a solar mirror for energy that half earth depends on plus it could be turned around to fry cities at will... that'd make the playing field decently even.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 08 2022, @11:47PM (3 children)
You didn't read Heinlein, did you? Spacers have got rocks. Rocks are maybe not as good as the Rods of God, but rocks will work. One thing you can be sure of, spacers will be hoarders, and they will find the fuel to push rocks out of their orbits when it is necessary. How big a rock is necessary to destroy much of the infrastructure of NYC, or LA, or the District of Columbia? Assuming they decide to strike the US of A - every other city on earth is equally vulnerable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment [wikipedia.org]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday October 09 2022, @12:03AM (2 children)
Moving rocks takes long time and the operation is fragile. I am sure earthlings would kill all the spacers way before the first rock comes. Besides, three body problem is not solved yet so one has to steer the rock all the time and under fire - unrealistic.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday October 09 2022, @02:05AM (1 child)
The three body problem is not "solved" in a mathematical sense, but the approximations are accurate enough for them to make a choice as to which building in Washington or Moscow the rock will land on.
You should read the Heinlein book. The computer Mike and the characters were the fiction parts, the ballistics and kinetic bombardment stuff was spot on.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 09 2022, @05:25AM
Actually it is solved in that sense (your approximation is actually the mathematical solution). It just doesn't have a particular, easy-to-write expression for the trajectories except in a few degenerate cases.
That bears repeating.
One possible way would be to covertly darken the surface of a large asteroid to an extremely low albedo and then alter its course to intercept Earth. If they don't have a good infra-red surveillance system, the impact might be the first warning that you're attacking. But if they do have such a system, an asteroid that is near invisible in visible light wavelengths and heading anywhere near Earth is probably an informal declaration of war and maybe attempted genocide too.
(Score: 5, Flamebait) by Captival on Saturday October 08 2022, @04:57PM
According to law experts, we need a lot more money and attention given to law experts.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday October 08 2022, @06:43PM (1 child)
But what you extract and process is yours.
Yes, it should be that simple, but lawyers and pirates need work
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2022, @02:02AM
Should they pay anything for the infrastructure required for companies to exist that allow excavation and mining on the Moon? It's not the Great Man that achieves society-wide goals. It's society that allows the possibility of Great Men (and women too, nearly). An open-minded society that escaped Kings and is working the last Dictators out of its system. If you think the genie goes back in the bottle, your wishes are denied.