Should we mine the Moon?

Pibisi podcast on suuri tämän äänet. Selvitetään yhdessä juuri sinun tilanteesi ja mahdollisuuteisi asuntova kuudellisen lainaan. Plus, te bank, tervetuloa sellaisena kuin olet. Welcome to the inquiry from the BBC World Service. I'm William Crawley. Each week one question for expert witnesses and an answer. NASA's Artemisprogramme has just passed a major milestone, bringing us closer to returning humans to the moon and eventually further to Mars. But this isn't a repeat of the Apollo space program of the 1960s. This time the United States is planning a permanent presence on the lunar surface. At the same time, China is accelerating its own plans, with the goal of landing astronauts by 2030, having already made history with the robotic mission to the moon's far side. What's driving this new space race is not just exploration. The moon holds resources that could potentially support human life in space and address shortages back on Earth. Within its surface is Helium 3, a rare material that some believe could one day power clean nuclear fusion. So this week we're asking, "Should we mine the moon?" Part 1 - The Moon Boom I am Dylan Mikesell. I'm a Principal Geophysicist at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute in Oslo, Norway. The moon, in my opinion, provides a nearby place to look for additional resources to sustain life on Earth or to sustain life off of Earth. To most of us, the moon looks barren, but to scientists like Dylan, its dusty surface, known as Lunar Regolith, is a record of billions of years of cosmic impacts. And the process that has created that regolith is largely impacts. So, meteoroids, small bits of space rock that are impacting the moon, don't burn up. They just go straight in and hit the crust, and then vaporize and break the rock that's there into tiny little pieces. And that's how we get the regolith. This often fine, pyrrhumaterial isn't just debris, it's a storehouse. On the lunar surface, we have things known as volatiles. So these are things that we also have on Earth. These are materials that had normal atmospheric pressures and temperatures evaporate, so it turned from a solid to a gas. There's lots of different organic and carbon-bearing elements or molecules. You have things like methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, etc. And then we also have silicate oxides and sulfides, and these are big sources of metals. So if we process these types of silicate and oxides, extract aluminum, iron, titanium, silicon, magnesium. In addition to the metals, there's quite a few rare Earth elements. These are used in a lot of high-tech, modern industrial fabrication. Amongst those resources, one in particular, has captured global attention. Helium 3 is a helium isotope, which just means it's like the normal helium, but it has a different number of neutrons. So it has one neutron and two protons. It can be used for pooling quantum computers. It can be used in all kinds of manufacturing processes. And then the main thing that gets people the most excited is that it can be used in nuclear fusion reactors as a much cleaner energy source than the nuclear fuels that we use today. That sounds like the beginning of a lunar gold rush. But the problem with gold rushes is sometimes there's not very much gold at the end of the rush. Might that be true also of helium 3 on the moon? We don't have, let's say, quantitative evidence of exactly how much is there. The images that we get of how much helium is there at the surface, they're actually pretty blurry when you look at the scale of how the crust and the regular changes. So what we need is in situ data, meaning we need to go there. We need to take instruments that go to the surface and make measurements. So could these resources do more than power industry? Could they actually support human life on the moon? In order for humans to sustain life on the moon, we need habitats, we need oxygen, we need water, and we need food. All of those things can be brought from Earth, but it's very expensive. So there will be a number of, let's say, basic things that need to be created in terms of infrastructure from the lunar resources that then enable a longer term presence. Part of the answer may come from what scientists call water ice. Find mainly in the shadowed craters near the moon's poles, where temperatures plung well below -150 degrees Celsius. This ice exists not as vast lakes, but a small deposits mixed in with the regular, or locked with minerals, and yet its potential is immense. From a resource perspective, if we can access water in the form of ice, it will provide lots of different things for humans and industrial scale processes that happen on the moon. We can use it for oxygen, and then from the industrial side, we can actually split the oxygen and the hydrogen using a technique called electrolysis to create separation, and then use those separately as rocket fuel propellant components. From iron and titanium to rare earth elements essential for modern electronics, the moon holes the building blocks for construction, manufacturing, and perhaps even a launch pad for missions deeper into space, including Mars. But alongside that potential, there are growing calls for caution. Time for our next expert witness. Part 2. A fragile frontier. We always talk about the space race as a race to the moon between countries, or in this case hundreds of private corporations. Dr Justin Holkum is assistant research professor with the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas in the United States. He's also a member of an international research committee, drawing up guidelines on protecting space heritage. But there's actually another space race happening should the moon be used for scientific exploration or economic gain. And I think there's, and there always must be a middle ground there, and my fear, my ethical fear, is that the scientific interest will get left in the dust. Beneath the moon's surface lies material that may preserve billions of years of cosmic history, a vast archive of scientific discovery waiting to be understood. And that presents a dilemma. Do we extract those materials now for economic gain, or preserve them for research, and deepen our understanding of our solar system? Because once we begin mining the moon, some of those scientific records could be lost forever. For Justin, that risk is too great. He argues that mining should not be permitted until those concerns are properly addressed. I always think of it as a problem that's already been solved, the Arctic, or even the Antarctic. We've created international research scientific stations where we collaborate together for humanity's sake. I know there are many organizations aimed at trying to figure out this problem, but solutions have yet to surface. And that's a problem, because it's clear that there's a rapidly closing window that we're dealing with for figuring out how to collaborate effectively. There are many stakeholders in this new linear race, governments, scientists, private corporations, but who is really in control? Who has the most clout? Normally, immediately, I'd say government, but part of the intricacy of this new space race is that corporations have more power than they ever have. And if you look at, say, satellite internet constellations as an example, it's not necessarily China that has five companies aiming to launch 200,000 satellites, but five different corporations. The fact is, is that the corporations have more power than ever, and they're driving the impetus for getting to the moon. Beyond the scientific opportunities, there's another question. The moon is already an historical record of human exploration. From the Apollo landing sites to abandoned instruments, rover tracks, even personal artifacts, like golf balls, left behind by astronauts. Do we have a responsibility to protect them? I think it should all be protected, yes. We always discuss our migration out of Africa. Well, the material on the moon and Mars and elsewhere represents the extent of that migration. And so it's tied to our species history of evolution and migration. Important things like Charles Duke's photograph that was left there, but not just the objects, but the tracks, the rover wheels, the scientific drilling areas. That is all evidence of human activity and records our interaction with the moon, which is crucial and important to our species history. So far, two major concerns emerge. The potential loss of future scientific discovery and the destruction of cultural heritage that documents humanity. these first steps into space. But what about the moon itself? What happens to the lunar environment if large scale extraction begins? Is there a concern that our rapid interest in the moon mining can lead to a destroyed and over extracted moon scape? Yes, absolutely. We deal with that issue on Earth every day. Drill, baby, drill. The moon is shrinking very slowly, which causes moon quakes. And now it's probably not a major concern that drilling might affect that, but we just don't know because we haven't done it. We don't understand the geohazards that could be caused from mining, for example, and the interaction of the upper regolith to structural deformation from mining, especially the dust plumes generated from mining and how that could affect the rock cycle on the moon. That is why we should slow down and think about these things because we have to create government frameworks and maybe even scientific preserves to ensure their protection, especially craters. We use crater stratigraphy to understand the age of the moon and the age of different landscapes, so obviously shouldn't be mining those and destroying those. But even if science and industry can collaborate, wood nations and corporations really slow or pause the race to the moon long enough to put protections in place. I think it will probably fall on deaf ears, especially given the frequency this year amount of corporations who have zero interest in answering scientific questions. I have to try to be optimistic, but at the end of the day I don't really see it happening, but I have to try. You're listening to the inquiry from the BBC World Service. Our third expert is coming up in a moment, but just a quick reminder, you can catch past episodes wherever you get your podcasts, like cycling, is it time to swap four wheels for two? Or what will Chile's latest telescope tell us about the universe? Just search for the inquiry in your podcast app. And thanks for listening. Part three. Space diplomacy. In the absence of good rules and laws that we all accept, then clearly they will be conflict. Professor Thomas Erbuchen is director of the space program at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He's a former senior official with NASA and now sits on the boards of several of the biggest companies in this sector. The Cold War comes to mind in the Apollo programs that were really a demonstration of capability and leadership. It became the location where the Soviet Union and the US could demonstrate leadership without pointing weapons at each other. I think it's different today than it was in the Apollo era. It's less about a demonstration of capability. I think the milestone here in the objective is to have an enduring presence. So not just go to the moon for flags and footprints, but to stay. And not just to stay or even to explore, but to dig, to drill, to exploit what we find there. Suppose for an instant we could actually bring rare elements back to Earth, the whole clean energy transition really needs those elements and supposed to be consistent in check them from the outside. They change the markets. Absolutely does. It also creates new revenue streams. It creates economic growth in areas where there was no. pursuing that prize is an expanding cast of global players. The dominant players now are, I would believe, the US, which still in most parts of space exploration and technology leads the world. On the other side, you have China, which is largely a state and government focused activity with the military clearly in charge. Also kind of a new entrepreneurial part of that economy also starting. India's made tremendous progress. Has landed at Rover, a lander very successfully on the surface of the moon, but also has developed launch capability that sets them really close to being able to put humans in space. Behind that are Japan and Europe doing important work. The new space race is more than a contest of knowledge. It's also about money and focus. The country's pulling ahead today are those with deep pockets and the political will to stay in the game and private corporations are at the heart of it all. I think it's important to recognize that these companies are there by design. In George W. Bush, the lunar initiative and the people who were at NASA there basically said how much will it cost and how much money do we have available. They came up with the idea of helping companies develop these capabilities and industrializing them. Out of that, the Obama administration and then Trump won and so forth, what happened is that these companies grew up. The best capabilities are now provided by these companies, not only the governments. National governments working closely with commercial corporations to expand their power and dominance, showing leadership in the world and potentially making a lot of money through extraction. To many, that sounds like the history of the scramble for Africa or India. I think there are elements to this situation today that remind us a little bit of colonial times in a sense that multiple nations are buying for treasures they were imagining on the other side of that travel. I think the uncertainty here is actually bigger than the uncertainty was there. Nobody has measured how much helium-free is really in the top regolith of the moon. I think there is some there just having done experiments in space. Can we actually peel out the rare elements from the moon, robotically, and bring them back? Where is the water on the surface of the moon? We know the regions, it's mostly in the polar regions, but how is it distributed? A huge difference if you have a layer of ice of many hundred meters versus kind of vapor distributed over a large volume of rock, bringing that out as much harder in the second case than it is in the first. So it's a gamble, but the world's economic superpowers are going anyway. And that raises questions of peace and security as they scramble for the moon's potentially transformative resources. The moon has become much more interesting for militaries. The moon is kind of a realm of national interest. We can't mine on the moon everywhere. There's like a dozen or so places where you could really mine for a variety of reasons. So basically there is scarcity with a huge economic potential. So it's both of these motivations that have people's militaries or national security people focused on it. Time for our final expert witness. Part four. Lawyers in orbit. The big picture is that we have had 50, 60 years of peaceful use and exploration of outer space governed by a number of United Nations treaties. Dr. Tanya Masan's fan is assistant professor and deputy director of the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University in the Netherlands. The outer space treaty is we call it sometimes the Constitution of outer space. It is the first and the oldest treaty governing the activities of states in use and exploring outer space. It was concluded in 1967. It's a relatively short treaty with just 17 articles and its title says already what its aim is namely to state principles. And the treaty's central principle is this. Outer space including the moon is the province of all mankind and no country can claim ownership of the moon. It does set the basic rules of behavior if you like for states to carry out space activities such as space exploration should be done for peaceful purposes. States are internationally responsible for their activities in outer space and that includes the activities of their private entities. States can be held liable in case of damage that is caused by their space objects to persons or property of other states. It is prohibited to place nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in outer space and every object that is launched into outer space has to be registered so that we know what is up there. I would definitely say that it has been effective because it has prevented conflicting outer space. The absence of an international space court perhaps speaks to the outer space treaty's success and since 1967 further treaties have sought to agree more rules to govern space. You cannot own outer space per se. Does that also mean that you cannot own the resources that we might find there? That is not my interpretation and also if you read the preamble of the outer space treaty it starts by mentioning the great prospects that outer space can hold for humanity and the whole fact that we even have a special treaty which is called the Moon Agreement which specifically talks about how we should manage the use of resources. For me means that the drafters of the treaties did never intend to say you might find water on the moon but no one can touch it. That doesn't make sense to me. The 1979 Moon Agreement builds on the outer space treaty, declaring the Moon's resources the common heritage of mankind and calling for an international system to govern their eventual exploitation. That hasn't happened. because only a handful of countries have signed the agreement, and neither the US or China are amongst them. Instead, some countries, including the United States, have enacted national laws to provide legal certainty over resource rights for companies considering investment in space mining. More recently, the non-binding Artemis Accords have helped shape NASA's Artemis program, a collaborative approach to sustainable lunar activity and resource use. But there is still no universally accepted international law explicitly permitting or prohibiting lunar mining. To address this gap, Tanya co-founded the Hague Working Group, a multidisciplinary body that proposed 20 building blocks for regulating space resource activities as a basis for a future governance framework. Just to give an example, would operations that would be mining on the moon be allowed to have a certain safety zone around their operation that would prevent others from coming in without previous warning and so on, because these operations will throw up lunar dust, which can be very damaging and so on. So that is of course a question where states will have to agree. They would have to register such a zone. They would have to make sure that it is limited in time and in size. And so really practical questions of, let's say, operationalizing those principles from the treaties which do not go into that detail. They're definitely not and they were never intended to be legally binding. And the aim of this working group was really to do the groundwork and then for states to pick that up and go further with it. And that is what is happening now in the United Nations, where this working group is working on principles. But all of that is more easily said than done. Developing a global treaty through the UN process can take decades. But I'm also a realist and a pragmatist and it is a fact that states are not very eager to conclude binding agreements. So I think that getting a new treaty on space mining is not very likely to happen. However, what we should strive for is to at least come to what we call the soft law solution, having guidelines that will then be implemented at the national level and that do set a certain minimum threshold. I never say never, you know, you don't know miracles do happen. So back to our question, should we mine the moon? We've heard the potential, vast resources, new technologies and extending humanity's reach beyond earth. We've also heard the warnings, lost scientific knowledge, erased space heritage and a legal system still catching up with events on the ground and in deep space. While cooperation is widely seen as essential, there is no guarantee it will match the pace of human ambition. But the races on and the tantalising prize of the moon's resources may prove irresistible to those states and corporations with the money to chase the dream. At this point, what we can do is anticipate and mitigate the harms that accompany our future journeys back and agree on ways to use the resources we find there. Perhaps then we can ensure that the moon doesn't become a quarry for the world's richest countries, but remains the province of all humankind. Thanks for listening to the inquiry from the BBC World Service. You can find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Try Cannes the World Catch China in the Rare Earths race. Or maybe how much of a threat is satellite warfare. Just search for the inquiry and hit subscribe so you don't miss an update. This episode of the inquiry was written and presented by me William Crawley. The producer was Jill Collins, researcher Evie Yabsley, editor Tom Bigwood and technical producer Nikki Edwards. We did something that no one else had ever done. There was such a excitement and energy about this moment. It opened the door for everything that rapidly followed. Witness history. History as told by the people who were there. I was walking in space. The first man ever to do so, I felt almost insignificant, like a tiny ant compared to the immensity of the universe. Witness history from the BBC World Service. Listen now, search for Witness History wherever you get your BBC podcasts.