BILL NELSON, the administrator of NASA, grinned for the cameras as he handed over a cheque to Justin Cyrus, the boss of a company called . The amount? A mere 10 cents. This moment last year was partly a marketing gimmick. But in its own strange way, it was also a legitimately important milestone: it marked the first time that a government agency – or anyone else for that matter – had signed .
If all goes to plan, later this year Lunar Outpost will use a rover to scoop up some lunar dust, snap a photo of it, and officially transfer ownership of the material to NASA. In return, the agency will pay a further fee, this time 90 cents to make a round dollar.
The sums may be small, but this is the start of a new era for humanity, one in which the buying and selling of resources will extend beyond our home planet for the first time. And though Lunar Outpost looks set to be one of the first companies making money on the moon, it will be quickly followed by others. USÂ plans to return people to the lunar surface rely heavily on partnering with companies.
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There is just one problem. International space law is hazy about how business should work there and indeed if it is allowed at all. “This is uncharted terrain for sure,” says space law expert at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Outer space commerce is at an inflection point, and the precedents we set today could have far-reaching consequences.
What laws govern space?
Space law has long been dominated by the Outer Space Treaty, which was negotiated through the UN and first came into force in 1967. More than 100 nations are now party to it, including all the major space powers. It says the moon and other celestial bodies “shall be free for exploration and use”. But what does that mean, exactly?
The US takes the view that “use” means people can mine resources in space, so long as they only profess to own the materials collected from their excavations. A few other nations, such as Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates, have embraced this view too, in an effort to attract fledgling space companies. Others, notably Russia and China, have historically opposed such notions.
Exactly what kind of cosmic capitalism is permitted remained a moot point until about a decade ago when two companies, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, announced plans to prospect for and mine water and precious metals on asteroids. This sparked debates at the UN’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) over the legality of their business models. The companies have since run out of money and been acquired by other enterprises.
Discussions have now settled in an extraction-friendly direction. “I think a consensus has been emerging in the past few years that owning resources isn’t per se appropriation, hence not illegal,” says Masson-Zwaan. “However, you need to have a regulatory framework so that it’s not a gold rush.”
The Artemis Accords
In May 2020, the US tried to deliver exactly this by unveiling a set of principles for the use of space called . These include promises to share data openly, preserve historical areas like the Apollo landing sites and assist astronauts of all stripes in emergencies. Agreeing to the accords allows countries to participate in the US’s lunar plans, giving them greater access to scientific expertise and potentially allowing them to reap technological benefits. Signatories to the pact – of which there are now 21, including countries as diverse as Colombia, Singapore, France and Bahrain – must also accept the US interpretation of international space law regarding resource extraction.
NASA’s deal with Lunar Outpost was a continuation of these US efforts to set precedents for how businesses can operate in space. But what will Lunar Outpost actually do up there to make money?
The company plans to land its rover, the Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP), on the moon by late 2022. It will aim for the lunar south pole, which is also a target landing site for the Artemis missions to return people to the moon. The area is known to host plenty of water ice, which will be needed to help keep astronauts hydrated among other uses. MAPP will use its perforated wheels to collect fine lunar regolith, or dust, and store this in its body. Lunar Outpost will then send NASA the rover’s coordinates, leaving its bounty in place until the agency can pick it up.
The idea to sell this haul so cheaply came to Cyrus when he and his colleagues heard that NASA was seeking to purchase lunar rocks from private companies that were already headed to the moon. The lowball bid – to sell a scoop for $1 – was about attracting attention and starting a conversation about the long-term future of business in space. Meanwhile, the company is making its real money in the short term by selling slots on its rover for other companies’ hardware. One customer is the smartphone company Nokia, which hopes to test high-bandwidth communications on the moon.
There are still many outstanding questions about how business will work up there, and academics are trying to iron them out. Masson-Zwaan was a co-founder of the Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group, which included members of spacefaring nations, universities, intergovernmental organisations and private businesses. In 2019, it published a on how to achieve equitable and sustainable use of space resources. Some of its proposals, such as establishing safety zones around mines, have already found their way into the Artemis Accords.
The Hague group has since disbanded. But last August, COPUOS created a subcommittee called the Working Group on Legal Aspects of Space Resource Activities with a formal, five-year mandate to iron out the remaining questions surrounding governance of space resources. While its recommendations won’t be legally binding, they could be used as guidelines for laws enacted in different countries regarding resource extraction.
Perhaps the biggest sticking point will be how to ensure the benefits of space mining are equitably shared. The Outer Space Treaty says any use of space resources “should be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development”. But it is unclear how this ought to work. One previous suggestion has been that nations using moon resources should somehow compensate lower-income nations for the privilege. At the Hague group, all parties agreed that this compensation didn’t have to be monetary, says Masson-Zwaan. It could include things like higher-income nations investing in research and building capacity for others.
Whatever happens, most observers expect that future generations will look back at this point as the time when governance and commerce in space really began to take shape. “It’s an exciting time, and it will go down in history,” says Masson-Zwaan. “It’s important that we get things right.”
