Moon rush could spark conflict, complaints study

The impending moon race in the short term could end up creating new political and economic tensions, or even conflicts, as both commercial actors and those of national space agencies compete for a limited number of easily accessible lunar resources. Or so says a new study by an international team of researchers led by the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

In their article just published in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A., the authors argue that many of the useful and valuable resources on the Moon are concentrated in a modest number (tens) of rather small regions (on the order of a few kilometers).

“Once a resource is sufficiently valuable and scarce, disputes are inevitable.” Martin Elvis, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and lead author of the article, told me. “Whether they become conflicts in the sense of being violent depends on how we choose to rule the Moon.”

The authors note that conflicts over access to five major lunar resources are potential flashpoints:

— Water. Both for life support. And to break down into its constituent components of hydrogen and oxygen which can then be liquefied and used as rocket fuel.

—- Peaks of eternal light. These peaks are both valuable for near-continuous solar energy harvesting, say the authors. And since places where day-to-night temperature swings of around 300 degrees Celsius of the typical equatorial lunar surface location are mostly avoided, they note.

— Iron. The iron-rich lunar regions resulting from asteroid impacts are about 30-300 km wide and limited to about twenty sites, the authors write. However, the asteroid iron also has the advantage of being rich in precious metals, including platinum and palladium, they note. And iron becomes important when building heavy industrial equipment.

—- Cold traps. So-called cold traps in permanently dark craters at the poles are believed to contain volatile materials from the early solar system, including water, the authors write. The floors of such craters have been in near-total darkness for up to 3.5 billion years, they note, illuminated only by starlight and nearby edge reflections. Extremely cold (below -180 degrees Celsius), they can be particularly suitable sites for far-infrared telescopes or as a point to build ultra-cold atomic structures on a much larger scale than Earth or in free space laboratories, the authors write.

– And helium-3. Such lunar sources of helium-3 will be needed to power nuclear fusion reactors here on Earth. But such fusion reactors remain a technology whose use is still decades into the future.

Who could be at loggerheads over the next few years about lunar resources?

We are already seeing an increase in Chinese and Russian state activity, albeit with plug-ins from the private sector, and a reprogrammed NASA program will see a return to the moon, and more or less the same sites that China and Russia are also taking. aim, Tony Milligan, Senior Researcher at the Cosmological Visionaries project at King’s College London and one of the co-authors of the article, told me. Hence, the early stages of the development of tension over the next decade may seem like a continuation of the old Cold War, albeit with China as the most important player, he says.

And even in the next five years, at least five sovereign nations have credible plans to land on the moon (China, India-Japan, Russia, the United States), the authors write. Additionally, several commercial companies (including PTScientists, Moon Express, Astrobotic, Masten, ispace) and the nonprofit SpaceIL, have stated their intention to do so, they note.

However, Elvis thinks a first point of contention could come with building solar energy towers.

Elvis says the first lunar human base will need about 100 kW. Some 20-meter-tall solar panels could provide that energy, he says. But because the Sun revolves very close to the horizon at the lunar South Pole, at some point during the lunar day a tower will inevitably cast its long shadow on any other nearby tower, Elvis says. To avoid daily lunar blackouts, they will need some sort of coordination on where they place their solar power towers, he says.

Does the current Outer Space Treaty (OST) of 1967 offer guidance for avoiding such conflicts?

As Elvis points out, the OST is heavily based on the Antarctic Treaty, with many equivalents: “pending” territorial claims; no military use; no nuclear; inspections of signatories’ advisory meeting facilities; disputes resolved through negotiation, mediation and conciliation.

“The big difference is that for Antarctica, disputes can be sent to the International Court of Justice,” Elvis said. “The OST has no enforcement mechanism.”

Can the current cosmic space treaty be updated?

“On the Moon, you don’t need all-out war for people to be harmed in avoidable ways, you just need pressure to overstretch supply and non-service lines in a timely manner,” Milligan said.

Therefore, some level of tacit coordination will be needed to avoid problems once the lunar race begins.

Yet coordination will be most effective if it is pursued before actors make hard-to-reverse commitments for mission projects or substantial investment, Alanna Krolikowski, a political scientist at the University of Science and Technology of Missouri (Missouri S&T) and one of the co document -authors, he told me.

Even so, Elvis isn’t overly optimistic about any kind of negotiated new outer space treaty.

It’s hard to see a new negotiated treaty in today’s situation, says Elvis. Not only because of the rise in nationalism, he says, but also because in 1967 there were really only two actors: the United States and the USSR. There are now many and a growing number, including commercial companies, Elvis says. The conflict on the Moon itself can begin as a kind of arms race, where one side tries to exclude another from a valuable position and the answer is to find a way around these tricks, he says.

“After a certain point, a mechanism will be needed to resolve these disputes; the alternative isn’t good, ”says Elvis.