U.S. Should Forge Concord With China On Exploring Moon, Scholars Say – Forbes
The U.S. should seek common ground with China in lunar exploration and develop a joint framework for regulating activities on the moon, according to experts in a new report from the Space Policy Institute.
“The Moon is a shared asset, a space for the whole world, and that should be reflected in its governance,” said Scott Pace, the institute’s director and a former NASA administrator.
“To prevent chaos, to ensure fairness, and to foster collaboration,” Pace and co-author Bhavya Lal, a senior scientist at the institute, said the United States needs to take the lead in the diplomatic arena. Their report “Shared Lunar Governance,” published in the Journal of Space Law, examines China’s rapidly expanding role in lunar exploration.
China, a relatively new player in the international space race, launched the first crewed mission to its own space station in June and has also planted an unmanned probe on Mars.
Pace said the report highlights the importance of a robust multilateral framework for governing lunar resources, including developing and utilizing scientific knowledge in a sustainable way.
“What is being proposed here,” Pace explained, “is not a partnership, but a framework, where everyone has access to it, regardless of who gets there first.”
“We’re now at a point where nations have overlapping interests on the moon,” Pace continued. “To prevent any chance of conflict and promote a more collaborative future, we need international rules.”
One possibility for such a framework, according to the authors, could be an “Outer Space Treaty Plus” that would encompass the U.S.-led Artemis Accords, but include input from countries such as China that have opted out of signing the Artemis Accords so far.
Pace and Lal also point out that current U.S. law, embodied in the Commercial Space Launch Act of 2004, effectively grants an “open access” license for U.S. commercial space firms to land anywhere on the moon, but it provides no legal protection or framework for the regulation of private activity in this sphere.
“China’s recent actions have sparked an open conversation about whether or not it is playing by the same rules of the game as its international counterparts,” the report concludes.
“It is clear that if China continues to assert its claim as a key stakeholder on the moon, its participation in any formal agreement regarding lunar resources and governance is paramount,” said Lal, the report’s co-author, who noted that “China’s continued lunar missions mean the world can no longer simply ignore it on lunar matters.”
“China and the U.S. have competing lunar ambitions, but that doesn’t have to turn into conflict if there’s a way to establish clear international rules for sharing and governing resources on the moon, or on any other planetary body,” the report concludes.
“At the moment, such rules do not exist,” Pace says.
As Pace has acknowledged, “In this increasingly competitive and multipolar international environment, the stakes are high for space diplomacy to foster stability and collaboration in the new space age.”
