Extract from ABC News
German scientists test newly developed spacesuits as the race to inhabit the Moon speeds up. (AP: Martin Meissner)
The 20th century ignited a space race between the US and USSR.
But in this century, a new race emerges between billionaires and major world powers to control the Moon.
SpaceX's Elon Musk wants to build a self-growing city on the Moon within a decade, a dream researchers have said could be near-impossible due to its lack of water.
Meanwhile, Blue Origin's Jeff Bezos has shared his desire to colonise the Moon.
There are echoes of old Cold War tensions rising between the US and a Russia-China alliance, as reports emerge of a race to build nuclear reactors on the Moon.
It begs the question: Can anyone actually own the Moon?
An artist's impression of a Bezos-owned Blue Origin New Glenn spacecraft, designed to help create settlements on the Moon and in space. (Supplied: Blue Origin)
It begins with a Cold War treaty
The 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty (OST) arrived at the height of the Cold War, after a USSR rocket carrying a Soviet flag crashed onto the lunar surface in 1959.
It raised concerns in the west about USSR claims of sovereignty over the Moon.
While that never eventuated, it did kickstart the ethos of a free Moon for all.
US President Lyndon B Johnson (far right) sits beside US Secretary of State Dean Rusk as he signs the OST. (Wikimedia Commons: ITU)
One of the OST's key rulings is that the Moon should be "used exclusively for peaceful purposes", prohibiting weapons testing or military use on its surface.
Other key articles related to the Moon are below:
The OST was endorsed unanimously by the UN's General Assembly, but in the years since, its limits have also been tested.
The Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle's view of Earth in 1969 after the historic Moon landing. (Reuters: File)
Gaps complicate the question
The problem with the OST, as Hussein Badreddine, a specialist in space law at the University of Sydney explains, is that the treaty is "very general and broad".
Notably, the OST has no provisions for mining the Moon.
In 1979, the UN Moon Agreement treaty tried to address this by ruling that "the Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind".
However, only 18 nations (including Australia) ratified that treaty.
The US and Russia were not among them.
Dr Badreddine said the suggestion that nations would need a licence to mine the Moon, with a fee that would then be shared amongst humanity, was seen by some US companies as "trying to socialise the Moon".
Instead, in 2015, an act granted US citizens and private entities the ability to own and sell space resources.
Luxembourg, the UAE and Japan enacted similar legislation.
Fellow space lawyer Cassandra Steer, however, is more optimistic about OST's endurance.
She has previously written about its merits and said she maintained "faith in the long-term endurance of the treaty, because it's most useful to think about as a constitution".
"The 'non-appropriation principle' in Article II is certainly under pressure, but what seems to be happening is a convergence around a new interpretation of the treaty, rather than discarding the treaty."
Actions like those of the US, Luxembourg, the UAE and Japan were "widening the interpretation of what's possible", she said.
The global space industry is on a trajectory to be worth a trillion dollars by 2030, the UN says. (Reuters: NASA/Kim Shiflett)
Does influence equal control?
Rebecca Connolly, Space Law Council of Australia and New Zealand chair, believes "the Moon is becoming the next frontier of geopolitical competition".
She said it was a competition where "being first matters".
"Countries that establish infrastructure and sustained operations on the Moon may gain considerable influence over how future activities are conducted," Dr Connolly said.
Gaps in international law raise concerns about who will control access to the Moon and its resources. (Reuters: NASA/Handout)
Dr Steer said the risk that SpaceX could control access to, and resources on, the Moon was "something that keeps me up at night".
"The US can't get to the Moon without SpaceX, but SpaceX could do it without the US, even without government contracts at this point," she said.
"Even if SpaceX were contracted by the NASA, there is still a possible scenario where SpaceX lands first on resource-rich lunar real-estate, and is able to use AI and robotics to build enough mining infrastructure to deny access to whoever comes second, and that is a real concern."
Already, a SpaceX rocket crash has carved a crater in the Moon. (NASA via AP)
The enduring hope for peace
The US is establishing a new non-binding set of guiding principles around lunar exploration.
The NASA-led Artemis Accords hope to reaffirm support for the OST, and build guardrails around space debris and the use of space resources.
Seventy-six nations have signed up so far, but Russia and China rejected them.
It is why Dr Badreddine prefers a treaty "under the UN umbrella" that specifically addresses military activity, resource extraction and environmental concerns.
"That treaty must be detailed and it should be negotiated under the auspices of the UN rather than outside the UN," he said.
What the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs does have is a working group, which is recommending legal principles for space resources.
Its last round draft recommendations, in April this year, recommended the Moon and its resources could not become property of any state or organisation.
It also reaffirmed the need for peace on the Moon, a message that seems more pertinent than ever.
What started as one small step for man has turned into one giant "what if" for space. (Supplied: NASA)
Last week, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans for weapons innovation, pointing to the need to dominate "any future battlefield, from under the Earth to beyond the moon".
It comes after the US confirmed for the first time it had deployed weapons in space.
Unlike the Moon, space does not have the same guardrails for peace.
But any battles on the Moon would be a "flagrant" breach of the OST's principles, Dr Steer said.
"It would also probably be in breach of the UN Charter," she said.
"But none of that matters to the current administration.
"In that sense, the Outer Space Treaty is only as strong as other countries want international law to be in general."
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