Concerns Arise Over the Legality of the Artemis Moon Base Project
With NASA gearing up to send four astronauts on its Artemis II mission this Wednesday, the competition to return to the Moon is heating up once again. This mission will have the crew aboard the Orion capsule orbiting the Moon before making their way back to Earth in just 10 days. They’ll be putting the hardware and systems to the test that could pave the way for Americans to set foot on the lunar surface for the first time in over 50 years during the Artemis IV mission, slated for 2028. While NASA isn’t quite ready to land astronauts on the Moon yet, the goal for the next five years is clear: not only to get humans back to the Moon but to establish a sustained presence there.
This is where Artemis distinguishes itself from the Apollo missions of the 1960s and ’70s — the plan isn’t just to visit the Moon for a few days, but to create a long-term habitat. The exact duration of this presence is still up in the air, but the vision is to construct a Moon base that allows astronauts to live on the lunar surface for weeks or even months.
However, this ambition complicates logistics significantly. Astronauts won’t be able to carry all the supplies they need, so they’ll have to rely on the limited resources available on the Moon through a process known as in-situ resource utilization. Instead of transporting vast amounts of water from Earth, for instance, the plan is to locate ice on the Moon and melt it for use. Sounds straightforward, right? Not quite.
The Moon presents a harsh and unforgiving environment, with perilous space radiation, sharp regolith that can damage equipment, and a different gravitational pull to navigate. While NASA’s goal of establishing a Moon base by 2030 may seem ambitious, it’s not as far-fetched as some of the grand Mars colonization schemes proposed by others. Throughout its Artemis messaging, NASA has highlighted the need to identify and extract resources from the Moon, such as water for fuel, helium-3 for energy, and rare earth elements like scandium for electronics. The abundance of these resources remains uncertain until they are thoroughly mapped and assessed, but they hold potential value for sustaining human habitation on the Moon. This is the core rationale behind Artemis: we need resources to support a Moon base, so we must build a Moon base to find those resources.
NASA has even referred to these efforts as a “lunar gold rush.” However, this raises a significant issue that technology alone can’t resolve: some experts argue that extracting resources from the Moon may violate international law.
While international law regarding space exploration is limited, it is clear on one point: no one owns the Moon. The Outer Space Treaty, signed nearly 60 years ago, remains the foundation of international space law today, explicitly stating that nations cannot claim sovereignty over celestial bodies. But what about resource extraction? That’s where things get complicated.
“The US considers that resource extraction is not appropriation,” says Cassandra Steer, a space law expert. Many international space lawyers, including Steer, contend that this interpretation is flawed. “That is an incorrect interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty. You’re trying to carve out a loophole.” After all, if a nation were to extract resources from unclaimed territory on Earth today, it would face significant legal challenges.
The US has approached this issue strategically through the Artemis Accords, an agreement signed by over 60 nations that outlines high-level principles for space exploration, particularly concerning the Moon. While many of these principles are reasonable, covering topics like data sharing and safety procedures, the accords also permit resource extraction, asserting that it doesn’t conflict with the principle of non-appropriation. They allow specific nations to establish “safety zones” around their lunar activities, preventing interference from others.
This doesn’t mean that whoever reaches the Moon first owns it, but it does imply that nations initiating activities like research or mining in a specific area gain priority access to resources there, with other countries unable to intervene. It’s not outright ownership, but it does grant a strategic advantage in resource extraction.
This approach draws parallels to the land grabs of the 19th-century American West, particularly regarding access to vital resources like water. “I think the Artemis Accords might open the door for these sorts of access claims on the Moon,” says Rebecca Boyle, a journalist and author. “The accords do say that safety zones should be relevant to the activities at hand, but a clever legal argument could lead to a situation where the first to arrive uses the safety zone rule to claim whatever is there.”
The US smartly integrated the accords into the Artemis program, requiring countries that wish to participate to sign the document. Key players like Canada, Japan, Australia, the UAE, and the UK have joined, prompting others, including France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, India, and Germany, to follow suit.
“This was a bit of a strong-arming by the US, saying that if you want to be part of our program, you must agree with our interpretation of international law,” Steer explains. The consensus from so many nations means that if resource extraction becomes accepted in practice, the original intent of the treaty could be effectively overridden by a widely accepted interpretation.
Steer bluntly summarized NASA’s approach: “You’re just trying to rewrite the treaty, and somehow you’ve convinced 60 countries to do it with you.”
The major concern in this legal debate is China, which has not signed the Artemis Accords and is on track to send its own astronauts to the Moon, potentially before the US. The relationship between the US and China in space is virtually nonexistent, but China is forming its own international partnerships for its lunar program, including agreements with Russia and collaborations with various European nations and Saudi Arabia. China plans to establish its own Moon base with Russia, called the International Lunar Research Station, while the US is ramping up its Moon program to outpace its rivals.
“The multi-trillion-dollar question is, why go to the Moon? To me, it’s purely geopolitical,” Steer asserts. This mirrors the motivations behind the last space race, where the US sought to outpace the Soviet Union not just for political power but to showcase its ideological superiority. Now, in an era of America First nationalism, the US aims to reassert its power, but the reality of space exploration is that it increasingly relies on international collaboration.
Today, the stakes extend beyond prestige; they encompass access to space resources, from controlling lunar orbits to securing materials essential for further exploration, like ice or helium-3. NASA’s justifications for Artemis have been somewhat circular: we need to send astronauts to the Moon to secure access to ice, which we need for water to support human exploration. While there are scientific reasons for a Moon mission, such as understanding the Solar System’s formation or using the Moon as a base for powerful telescopes, these have not been effectively communicated or promoted by NASA.
“The real justification, the hidden one, is who gets to have political dominance,” Steer concludes. “Space is just another domain where geopolitics are playing out. It’s no different from the AI race or competition over resources like oil and water. It’s another arena where the US is struggling to maintain its status as the dominant power, only to find that it can’t.”
