There’s a new era of exploration, not on the Earth but in space, with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Artemis programme that will send human explorers to the Moon and Mars soon. NASA aims to land at the Moon’s south pole by mid-2027 while sending humans on a scientific mission to Mars as early as 2035, aiming to decode the potential for human life on the red planet. The mission aims to land the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon, explore the lunar surface, and lay the groundwork for sending astronauts to Mars.
It is almost 50 years since astronauts last walked on the lunar surface, after which robotic exploration of deep space has seen decades of technological advancement and scientific discoveries. With NASA implementing the Artemis programme to achieve the goal of human landing, there is more to these explorations that will pave the way for a new and sustainable lunar economy.
In 2021, consulting company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) published a report on its assessment of the lunar economy. That study projected the lunar economy to have a cumulative value of about $170 billion over a 20-year period to 2040.
The research, over the years, also shows that such landing and mining opportunities on the Moon will harvest lunar resources and could lead to safer, efficient operations with less dependence on supplies delivered from Earth.
The public-private partnerships are expected to support and expand NASA’s Moon to Mars mission. As per ‘NASA’s Lunar Exploration Program Overview plan documented in September 2020 report, there are several current In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) investments through partnerships with industry and academia, especially with mining initiatives that will advance capabilities to find chemical and thermal process developments and provide options to break down naturally occurring minerals and compounds found on the Moon and convert them to human consumables or even propellant.
Not only the Moon, but the Mars atmosphere is rich in carbon dioxide, so NASA is investing in initiatives to focus on atmospheric extraction and conversion of CO2 to other useful elements or compounds.
However, mining is not an easy affair on the moon. ISRU involves the extraction of oxygen, water and pulling out metals on the moon, which will also lead to commercial activities and manual intervention of companies on the surface of the Moon.
Some other repercussions include extraction and mining that could pollute space with lunar dust. So managing this dust is crucial in ensuring sustainable and minimally disruptive mining practices.
Laws governing space are quite contradicting. On one hand, the Outer Space Treaty (1967) states no nation can claim to ‘own’ the Moon (or any celestial body). The 2020 Artemis Accords, however, allow for mining while reaffirming the Outer Space Treaty’s rejection of any claims of ownership over the Moon itself. Co-led for the United States by the Department of State and NASA, the Artemis Accords were initiated on October 13, 2020 with Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In fact, even Russia, which launched its first moon-landing spacecraft in 47 years last year to discover more about the elements held on the earth’s only natural satellite, is exploring the potential of moon mining. Why? That’s because the moon has water potential, hydroxyl molecules spread across the lunar surface and concentrated at the poles, as detected by NASA. Water is another source of hydrogen and oxygen and used as rocket fuel. Helium-3 is an isotope of helium, found on the moon and can be a good source of nuclear energy.
Countries like China have proven their capabilities in space and plan to explore the moon, Mars, and the deep space market, just as the United States and Russia.
There are researches led to implement a lunar architecture in which multiple providers (of crew systems, propulsion, logistics, science platforms, technology demonstrators, etc) can provide complementary capabilities that increase the overall success and resiliency of the lunar architecture.