The Moon, until now a territory of the unknown and the imagination, is in danger of becoming a dumping ground or a closet of absurd things that are so popular in the United States.
“No one owns the moon,” maintains Justin Park, an entrepreneur who wants to erect a cross on the Earth’s satellite as big as a two-story building, made of lunar material. It is a company estimated at one billion dollars that he has already spoken about with American legislators and Catholic organizations.
“You don’t want to trample on traditions, but it can’t stop the rest of the world,” he insisted in the presentation of his project. Overly restrictive regulations for lunar activities, she stressed, would destroy a fledgling industry before it got off the ground.
This is the heart of the matter. Science and business are heading towards what has been described as an astronomical clash regarding the future exploration of the Moon, in the style of Aguirre or the Wrath of God, and the use of its resources.
Celestial skirmishes emerge as possible due to companies’ plans to launch dozens of probes in the coming years to study the lunar landscape.
Humans do not expect to put their boots on the lunar surface again until 2026 with the Artemis III mission, partly as a stopover and supply station on the way to Mars.
But there is another aspect that is already raising controversy and that issue is the commercialization of the Moon and the laws regulating the adventure.
A series of unconventional privately funded plans, such as the giant crucifix, have emerged intended to exploit the use of the Moon, including a site for human ashes and another for beverage containers used in sports, turning it into a kind of container or, put more clearly, a galactic garbage dump.
On the recent lunar trip by the American company Astrobotic, which ultimately failed to reach the lunar surface, on board there were a dozen containers with human ashes and a can of Pocari Sweat, a famous Japanese isotonic drink. No one was clear about the real purpose of sending that can.
Those operations have gained steam as NASA, with its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, pushes to make the natural satellite more accessible. Concerns about possible shortcomings in US oversight and legal questions over the proper use of the Moon have come to the fore.
Although the previous missions of the project with Apollo, with which man was able to reach the Moon in 1969, left equipment and landing modules (as well as flags), the idea of ????using the satellite as a waste space does not fit well with all opinions.
For example, the Navajo Nation have complained and started a protest campaign. For this tribe of Native Americans, as for many other indigenous cultures, the Moon has a deep religious meaning and depositing human remains there represents a desecration. The Navajo maintain that current regulations allow unjustified exploitation of the lunar surface.
It’s not just Native Americans sounding the alarm. Astrophysicists warn that an unlimited race to exploit the Moon could cause irreparable damage to valuable scientific sites. Gravitational wave research, black hole observations, studies to identify life on small orbiting worlds may be in danger, they say.
What do the laws say today? Basically nothing. There are no American laws or standards, or anyone else’s, that describe what is acceptable.
As U.S. regulation stands, all those items and anything else can go to the natural satellite, as long as the Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies certify that the payload of a rocket launched from Earth does not endanger health and safety. public, nor the national security of the country or the international obligations of the United States.
Translated, it means that private space exploration companies can use the Moon as they see fit. “The problem has become urgent,” said Martin Elvis of the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard.
