One Giant Leap to Moon Exploration - Eight Nations Sign onto NASA Artemis Program

Humanity’s dream of a return to the Moon is quickly becoming a reality as the United States enters a new era of space exploration. (NASA, Artemis Plan). On October 13th, 2020, almost forty-eight years since astronauts of the Apollo 17 mission completed the last walk on the Moon, NASA announced that its celebrated Artemis Accords was officially adopted by eight partner nations. (Wall, Space.com). With this agreement in place, the path is now clear for those eight nations—Australia, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States—to participate in crewed lunar exploration. Id. The short-term mission of NASA’s Artemis program is to successfully return the next man and first woman to the moon by 2024, and subsequently establish a sustainable human presence on and around the moon by the end of the decade. (NASA, Artemis Plan). These bold objectives, precursors to a future manned mission to Mars, will require international cooperation, both in the public and private sectors. Id. The freshly signed Artemis Accords, as a means to advance this important partnership, outline a set of principles for responsible lunar exploration. (Wall, Space.com).

The multilateral Artemis Accords describe the shared vision of NASA and its fellow international space agencies regarding the principles necessary to create a safe and transparent environment for cooperative space exploration, scientific research, and commercial activities. (NASA, Artemis Plan). These principles, grounded in the United Nation’s (“UN”) Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (“OST”), bolster responsible space exploration while further encouraging peaceful relationships between space-faring nations. Id. At the core of this agreement is the requirement that all activities be conducted for peaceful purposes, per the doctrine of the OST. Id. The Artemis Accords also focus on transparency, interoperability of systems, emergency assistance, proper registration, sharing of scientific data, protecting historic sites and artifacts, sustainable space exploration, avoiding harmful interference, and mitigating orbital debris. Id.

On its face, the Artemis Accords merely reiterates the OST and other space treaties in a forum beyond the UN. While the principles of the OST, along with the instant multilateral agreement, are essential for intergovernmental cooperation in space, these broad standards can only be a stepping stone to a more comprehensive legal scheme. While the fifty-four-year-old OST prohibits claims of sovereignty over, or national appropriations of, the Moon or other celestial bodies, it is not clear how those principles will reconcile with the creation of a lunar outpost (part of the long-term Artemis Plan) or resource exploitation in Outer Space. The Artemis Accords also fail to address these issues, creating even more uncertainty with the establishment of “safety-zones”—a potential claim of sovereignty—and the endorsement of space resource extraction. (NASA, Artemis Plan).  However, according to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, "[t]his is just the beginning." (Wall, Space.com). The Artemis Accords serve merely as a preamble to further bilateral, government-to-government, agreements that participating nations will sign with the U.S., laying out each country’s specific contributions. Id. Hopefully, these future agreements will address the legal questions unanswered by the OST.

For now, while the Artemis Accords surely serve the national interests of the United States, it is unclear how the agreement will reconcile with international law and policy on equitable and sustainable space exploration. By avoiding the time-consuming and controversial process of amending or replacing the OST at the UN, NASA succeeded in furthering its space policy in a timely and controlled manner. For instance, the agreement lends further legitimacy to the 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act and subsequent U.S. Space Policy directives, which explicitly grant American companies and citizens the right to mine and sell space resources under the oversight of federal regulators. (Wall, Space.com). While the U.S. Government feels this position will benefit the commercial space industry, the legality of this position is still an unsettled topic under international law. Id. NASA’s Artemis Program will undoubtedly take advantage of this position to exploit lunar resources, such as the ice located at the polar craters, as a means to accomplishing its mission. Consequently, with eight nations signing onto this policy, this position only gets that much closer to settled international law, and further away from the best practices regarding the sustainable development of space. Id.