THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
ON 31 MAY, New Zealand took one small step in the new space race. We signed the Artemis Accords, a set of agreements between the United States and a handful of other countries hoping to participate in a NASA programme to return humans to the moon by 2024.
The goal of the accords is ostensibly to set “peaceful norms for behaviour” in space. But unlike the moon landings of the 1960s and 70s, the new space race isn’t just about the propaganda power of getting there first. Countries and companies are eager to exploit the moon’s minerals and molecules. The discovery of water on the lunar surface has raised the possibility of permanent human settlement, as well as making the moon a potential pit stop on the way to Mars. That has sparked concerns that the accords are being used to legitimise an aggressive American push to make the moon, and outer space in general, a “space for capitalism” as well as for cooperation.
Moon-mining is no longer science fiction — it’s just around the corner. The Americans plan to land the first woman and the first person of colour on the moon by 2024, drill into the lunar surface to analyse its resources, and establish a presence for future Mars missions. In 2020, China started gathering soil samples from the near side of the moon. Russia is planning a series of missions to the lunar south pole to prospect for water ice, helium-3, carbon, nitrogen and precious metals.
There’s also a crowd of private and corporate players racing to get in on the action. This year, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin vied with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to win a NASA contract to build the next lunar lander (Musk won). Japanese lunar exploration company ispace aims to “spearhead a space-based economy”, anticipating that by 2040 the moon will support a population of 1000 people, with 10,000 visiting every year. As early as 2022, Finnish mobile phone company Nokia hopes to set up a
