There is something disturbingly arrogant about the current focus on the moon and the fawning chorus acclaiming the Artemis II mission. The commentary from Florida as the moon rocket launched was of “humanity’s next great voyage beginning”.
Two years ago, a report of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) purred about how its Artemis moon programme is one driven by “ethical and societal considerations” with a “core value of inclusion”.
Lunar missions are no longer the preserve of white men, so that supposedly makes them shine, and because there are accords with multiple nations, there is, the narrative goes, no question of moon wars.
History would suggest otherwise. As James Clay Moltz, author of the 2008 book The Politics of Space Security, put it, “conflicts regarding new frontiers have plagued the history of international relations for centuries”. In the late 1950s, military analysts were predicting the moon would become a “high ground” for defence and associated military operations, especially after the Soviet Union beat the US into space with the Sputnik satellite in 1957.
In 1958, Lieut Gen Donald L Putt of the US air force farcically called for the establishment of a US lunar missile base to give Washington the ability to rain nuclear weapons “down” on the Soviet Union, while also, notes Moltz, “helping to establish a series of US military outposts on other planets for coming space warfare and competitive colonisation”.
The US spent obscene amounts of money on its lunar programmes in the 1960s, documented in the historian Gerard DeGroot’s 2006 book, Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest.
America’s obsession with expanding frontiers meant that at the height of the lunar landing ambitions during that era Nasa’s budget increased five-fold, with the agency employing 34,000 people, while 375,000 people were working on the various related industrial and research contracts. Twelve Americans set foot on the moon due to the six Apollo missions launched between 1969 and 1972.
Those subsequently keen to provide reassurance about moon missions frequently pointed to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST), which involved superpowers accepting legal restrictions, and the declaration that the moon “is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use, or occupation, or by any other means”.
But some suggested this was vague enough to allow forms of commercial appropriation. Article IX of the treaty contains the principle of parties’ “due regard” for the activities of other parties, but what is the practical meaning of “due regard” and who decides? Could it mean exclusive access to a limited lunar site with valuable resources?
Space analyst Andrew Brearley has argued that “even though the OST prevents states from owning the moon, it does not prevent them from exploiting it”. He drew comparisons with the seabed, a similar “global commons”.
Are we really to believe there will not be competing interests as various countries aim to build lunar bases in the coming years and ultimately seek to reach Mars? Are we to believe China has trebled its space budget to advance humanity’s welfare? China’s 2019 defence white paper notes that space is a “critical domain in international strategic competition”, while its white paper on the possibilities of the lunar economy makes clear the ambition to source rare minerals.
This time last year, Nasa administrator Bill Nelson accused China’s civilian space programme of masking a military programme and asserted “we are in a race”. Billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, through their companies Blue Origin and SpaceX, are also in a race to build lunar bases – hardly quests that are devoid of megalomania.
[ Moonstruck: A geologist’s playground, an elite retreat or a staging post to a new frontier?Opens in new window ]
Some of the Apollo astronauts of the late 1960s and early 1970s felt quickly forgotten. Poorly treated by Nasa, a number succumbed to depression, alcoholism and resentment, as underlined in Andrew Smith’s masterful 2005 book, Moondust.
Neil Armstrong recalled standing on the moon during the famed landing in July 1969 and noticing he could blot out the Earth with his thumb. He was asked if that made him feel big. “No,” he replied, “it made me feel really, really small.”
The Artemis II crew are due to return early tomorrow morning Irish time to a fragile Earth; a planet, we were reminded almost two years ago by António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, that looks like it will “hurtle towards the hell of a 2.8C of global heating by the end of the century”.
In 1969, Armstrong uttered his famous soundbite about “one giant leap for mankind”. Guterres, too, spoke of a leap; the requirement of a “quantum leap in climate action around the world”. But we are more charmed, it seems, by the easier glamour of lunar exploration that is about preparing for commercial exploitation. That is not something to celebrate on an Earth being recklessly destroyed.
The moon should be left alone.
