The Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown program or CATALYST as it is often called, is taking the first steps towards exploring the moon for valuable resources.
A number of private companies have submitted applications to NASA, who will pick one or more of the applicants to build “prospecting robots” that will search the moon for valuable resources that are rare on Earth.
With their budget uncertain (the portion of the federal budget appropriated to NASA has declined pretty steadily since the early 90s), NASA has been trying creative ways to obtain funding for their continued research and space exploration- the CATALYST program being the latest example.
Image: NASA
However, the United Nations’ 1967 Outer Space Treaty explicitly prohibits any one country from laying claim to the moon. Naturally, CATALYST has sparked a fierce debate about lunar property rights, discussed in more depth in this National Geographic article.
The way I see it, there’s two major questions we must ask ourselves here:
Read the full story from The Verge here.
Feature image courtesy of NOVA.org
Reblogged this on Republic of Lagrangia and commented:
This is important stuff to think about, though we prefer asteroid mining to lunar mining.
agreed. i think asteroid mining raises less concerns as the average person cares little about some random rocks flying around our universe (general opinion, not mine). the moon, however, is much more sacred as a symbol to our species and i think exploitation would cause some major backlash. thanks for sharing on your blog!
” i think exploitation would cause some major backlash.”
I fully agree, especially if the US government by way of NASA would do this. It would fuel anti-americanism around the globe, and in certain regions (latin america and the middle-east) this might turn violently.
Unfortunately we have a history of acting before fully considering the ramifications. History seems to be repeating itself again it so often does…
In the end it will all be about the buck.
How much bucks,
The buck stops here
and lastly…
Pass the buck
Fortunately, there is little likelihood of Oil Spills.
unfortunately i must agree with you. but then the question still stands, who gets to make the bucks? i see no legitimacy in any one nation or coalition of nations declaring lunar property rights as their own, even if this coalition was made up of all the leading countries in space research/exploration. i think it would be REALLY cool if we could somehow give the property rights to some sort of international aid/welfare organization so that the money from the sale of the permits and a percentage of the profits made by the mining companies would go directly into a fund dedicated to improving the lives of those most in need here on earth. but, i’m obviously oversimplifying the idea to a certain extent, and unfortunately its pretty unlikely as well
Ownership issues did not stop Columbus, Cook, the Dutch, Rhodes, etc when is came to considering the “natives”; although this should not be too much of an issue on the moon.
Maybe there will be a joint venture?
I have no idea how mineraly wealthy the moon is but if some of the Science Fiction I have read over the years is anything to go by then Asteroid Mining might be more profitable: shunt one into an earth orbit and Bob’s your uncle.
Seems a more sound proposition than shipping stuff from 250k away.
Once they’ve gone out and got one, of course!
But, again, I am not space geologist..
I wonder what will happen to the parcels of land that have already been sold? Didn’t MJ purchase some Moon Land?
Definitely some good questions raised here. I agree that the moon doesn’t seem particularly promising as a mining project. We actually published an article on asteroid mining last November if you’re interested: http://thehigherlearning.com/2013/11/22/is-asteroid-mining-a-real-thing-video-infographic/
Thanks for your comments! You bring up a lot of great points.