US IMPERIALISM ON THE MOON

China lambasts NASA claim it may take over the moon

NASA chief has said that the world should be worried China may claim the moon as its own and tell others to ‘stay out’.

The war of words comes as NASA has also launched a moon exploration programme called Artemis WHICH IS A POLICY THAT SAYS THE MOON IS AMERICA'S SIGN THIS TREATY OR STAY OUT

[File: Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]

Published On 5 Jul 2022

China has criticised warnings from the chief of NASA that claimed Beijing may take over the moon as part of a military space programme.

Zhao Lijian, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters on Monday that China firmly opposed NASA Administrator Bill Nelson’s “irresponsible remarks”.

Nelson, who heads the United States’ space agency, had told the German newspaper, Bild, in an interview published on Saturday that he was worried about China’s space ambitions.

“We must be very concerned that China is landing on the moon and saying: ‘It’s ours now and you stay out’,” he said, referring to Beijing’s moon exploration plans.

China, which has stepped up the pace of its space programme in the past decade, has made exploration of the moon a focus.

It made its first lunar uncrewed landing in 2013 and is planning uncrewed missions to the moon’s south pole some time this decade.

It also plans to launch rockets powerful enough to send astronauts to the moon towards the end of this decade and has also set its sights on a Mars sample-return mission around 2030.

It is also working on a three-module space station called Tiangong that will rival the International Space Station (ISS), from which it is barred as US law bans NASA from sharing data with China.

NO FACTS JUST ALLEGATIONS
Nelson said China’s space programme was a military one and claimed that it had stolen ideas and technology from others.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson [File: Joe Skipper/Reuters]

When Bild asked what military purposes China may pursue in space, he replied: “Well, what do you think is happening on the Chinese space station? They are learning how to destroy other people’s satellites.
(CONFUSING CHINA WITH INDIA AND RUSSIA)

“There is a new space race,” he added. “This time, with China.”

Zhao, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said Nelson’s remarks were not the first time that NASA chiefs have “ignored the facts and spoken irresponsibly about China”.

“The US side has constantly constructed a smear campaign against China’s normal and reasonable outer space endeavours, and China firmly opposes such irresponsible remarks,” he said.

China has always promoted the building of a shared future for humanity in outer space and opposed its weaponisation and any arms race in space, he added.

The war of words comes as NASA has also launched a moon exploration programme called Artemis.

Under Artemis, NASA plans to send a crewed mission to orbit the moon in 2024 and to make a crewed landing near the lunar south pole by 2025.

That crew will include the first woman and the first person of colour on the moon. “We will use what we learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars,” NASA said on its website.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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TRIO OF SPACECRAFT LAUNCH FOR THE MOON

BY: DAVID DICKINSON 

DECEMBER 11, 2022  

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight, iSpace’s Hakuto R from Japan, and the United Arab Emirates’ Rashid rover are all headed to the Moon after launching aboard a SpaceX rocket.
The December 11th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket with Hakuto R.
SpaceX/ispace

Three international missions are now headed moonward, after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lit up the early morning skies over Florida.

Liftoff occurred from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:38 a.m. EST / 7:38 UT Sunday morning December 11th, targeting a geostationary transfer orbit. The launch was initially delayed by a day to allow for additional pre-flight checkouts, and delayed again until this weekend. The payloads separated as planned between 46 and 53 minutes after launch. The SpaceX Falcon 9 stage one booster B1073 successfully touched down at LZ 2 back at the Cape, 7 minutes and 44 seconds after launch.



The launch carried a trio of ambitious international missions, including NASA’s Lunar Flashlight orbiter, the Hakuto R Mission 1 lander built by Japan's iSpace company, and the Rashid lunar rover fielded by the Unites Arab Emirates Space Agency. All three will take a long path, traveling to the Moon over three to four months and arriving in lunar orbit in early 2023.

"It was a beautiful launch," says John Baker (NASA/JPL) in a recent press release. "The whole team is excited to see this small spacecraft do some big science in a few months' time."

The trio of spacecraft will take a long path to the Moon that saves on fuel but takes three or more months.
iSpace

LUNAR FLASHLIGHT

First up is NASA’s Lunar Flashlight CubeSat, originally intended to ride aboard Artemis 1 last month. After arriving at the Moon, Lunar Flashlight will enter a near-rectilinear halo orbit, the same type of orbit pioneered by NASA’s CAPSTONE orbiter, which just arrived in lunar orbit on November 14th. This will take the Lunar Flashlight as close as 15 kilometers (9 miles) to the Moon's surface, and as far away as 70,000 kilometers (43,500 miles) — a loop that will allow its detectors to peer into the permanently shadowed craters at the south pole. The four laser reflectometers carried in this briefcase-sized spacecraft will then map out the distribution of the water ice on the Moon's surface.The Lunar Flashlight unfolds its solar panels in a lab on Earth.
NASA / JPL-Caltech

Missions including India's Chandrayaan 1 and NASA’s LCROSS impactor have all gathered evidence for water ice on the Moon. Such deposits are thought to have been brought to the Moon by comets and could exist within the permanently shadowed cold traps that craters create on the Moon. Water ice on the Moon could prove to be a vital resource for future astronauts.

"We are brining a literal flashlight to the Moon--shining lasers into these dark craters to look for definitive signs of water ice covering the upper layer of lunar regolith," says Barbara Cohen (NASA/GSFC) in a recent press release. "I'm excited to see our mission contribute to our scientific understanding of where water ice is on the Moon and how it got to be there."

While the Lunar Flashlight team aims to map out these water ice deposits, this data might also show whether the shadows cast by uneven terrain helps water ice survive, even in the harsh daytime conditions near the Moon's equatorial regions. It's also possible this equatorial water ice, first noted in infrared data from the SOFIA airborne observatory, is instead locked up in rocks. It'll be important to future explorers to find out how accessible this water is

.

An artist's conception of Lunar Flashlight in orbit around the Moon.
NASA/JPL Caltech

Lunar Flashlight will be the first mission to use "green" (Advanced Spacecraft Energetic non-Toxic) propellant, an alternative to hazardous hydrazine that's most often used. This fuel was first demonstrated in low-Earth orbit in 2019 on NASA's Green Propellant Infusion Mission.

The spacecraft's design also relies on previous smallsat missions, including the MARCO Mars Cube One satellites that flew to Mars with Insight.

HAKUTO R

Also on board the SpaceX launch is iSpace’s Hakuto R Mission 1, which will attempt to land in Atlas Crater near Mare Frigoris on the lunar nearside in early 2023. Hakuto means "white rabbit" in Japanese; in east Asian mythology, the animal is often associated with the Moon. The European Space Agency’s worldwide tracking network will provide support for the mission down to the lunar surface.

Encapsulation of the Hakuto R mission shortly before launch.
SpaceX

The mission was one the entrants to Google's Lunar X prize, a contest designed to promote private lunar exploration. Although the LunarX prize competition ended without a winner in 2018, several companies have continued with their projects. One of these, the Beresheet lander built by SpaceIL in Israel, crash-landed on the Moon in April 2019.

"iSpace's Hakuto R Mission 1 is a technical demonstration mission," says Andrew Ames (iSpace). "Once the lander is on the lunar surface, operations will take place for approximately 10 days or one lunar day (from local sunrise to sunset)."

An artist's concept of Hakuto R on the Moon.
iSpace

The primary goal of Hakuto R Mission 1 is to demonstrate iSpace’s landing platform, providing momentum for future landing missions. The lander also carries a small transformer-like lunar robot "rover" that's about the size and shape of a baseball. It, too, will provide data for future missions.

The "ball rover" onboard the Hakuto R lander.
JAXA / iSpace

RASHID ROVER

The Hakuto R lander will also carry the United Arab Emirates' Rashid lunar rover down to the lunar surface. The four-wheeled rover is 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and will carry a suite of cameras and a Langmuir probe, designed to measure plasma properties of surface dust.

The UAE team with the Rashid rover.
Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center

"The mission's instruments are designed to study the lunar regolith in great detail," says Dimitra Atri (NYUAD Center for Space Science). "Data from the Langmuir probe on board the rover will help understand how solar charged particles interact with the lunar regolith. Based on data from the microscopic imager, we plan to create a replica of the lunar regolith in our lab and study its properties."

Researchers on Earth already do the same based on soil data from NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, and now, scientists plan to do the same with Rashid's findings on the Moon.

If this first mission is successful, iSpace could field its second mission to the Moon as early as 2024.

More lunar missions are coming sooner than that: SpaceX is set to launch the Intuitive Machines' IM 1 lunar lander mission in early 2023. (The company's first lunar mission launch of South Korea's Danuri, will have that spacecraft in lunar orbit by mid- December.)

The Moon is once again becoming a busy place. The Artemis 1 mission has been giving us some amazing views from its vantage point in a distant lunar retrograde orbit, including a unique Earth occultation by the Moon last week, ahead of splashdown in the Pacific and return later today.

Good luck to Lunar Flashlight, Hakuto R, and Rashid, as they head outward on their long flight to the Moon.

SPACE TOO

War and Mir: Russia cannot back up its nuclear space race threats

7 June 2024
Maxim Starchak
Research Fellow at the Centre for International and Defence Policy, Queen’s University, Canada

On May 22, Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder stated publicly that it was “likely” Russia had launched an anti-satellite weapon into low-Earth orbit. The development came just a month after Russia blocked a U.S.-Japanese resolution in the UN Security Council on the non-deployment of nuclear weapons in space. Since Moscow has traditionally opposed the militarization of space, the U.S. took Russia’s veto as a possible cover-up. According to Maxim Starchak, a research fellow at the Center for International and Defense Policy at Queen’s University (Canada), the Kremlin has every incentive to engage in such behavior. However, the resources available to Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, are so limited that the veiled threats are more likely aimed at affecting negotiations than at waging war in the cosmos.

No country on Earth can compete with the space-based capabilities of the United States military. America’s constellation of satellites allows for the integration of combat intelligence, communications, and navigation systems, enabling Washington’s land, sea, and air forces to coordinate operations among themselves.The U.S. possesses approximately 240 military satellites, while Russia has just over 100, and in terms of the total number of satellites, the gap is colossal: 5180 against 180.

The massive imbalance is easily explained by the difference in production capabilities between the two countries. While the U.S. can build approximately 3,000 spacecraft a year, Russia can only produce 40.

The U.S. possesses approximately 240 military satellites for various purposes, while Russia has just over 100

In addition, the U.S. can use commercial and civilian satellites as part of its military operations, and satellite imagery from American private companies has been a great help for Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression.
Why the Russian-Chinese treaty against weapons in space does not work

Russian nuclear doctrine considers the creation and deployment of missile defense and strike systems in space to be a threat, as Moscow fears that Washington could use its superiority in outer space to launch an unstoppable attack on Russia's strategic forces.

To combat this threat, in 2008 Russia and China submitted a proposal to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva: a draft Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects (PPWT). At the time, the two countries could not rival America’s financial and technical capabilities, meaning that a blanket ban on weapons in space represented their only opportunity to limit U.S. military superiority in that domain.

Putting forward the diplomatic initiative to ban space-based weapons systems, Russia nevertheless asserted that the development of terrestrial anti-satellite systems should not be outlawed. In other words, Russia and China sought both to limit the presence of U.S. military systems in space and to continue developing their on-the-ground anti-space systems. The proposal was unrealistic, of course.

The draft treaty had other shortcomings as well, including its vague definition of what should be considered a “weapon,” especially given the abundance of space-based systems used for military navigation, communication, monitoring, and command and control. In addition, the draft did not provide for the verification of the treaty’s implementation. As a result, the initiative was not given serious consideration.

Russia and China attempted to revive PPWT deliberations by presenting an updated draft in 2014, but they found no support from the United States. Later discussions have led only to the parties exchanging political commitments not to place weapons in space first, while also voicing calls for transparency.

In the meantime, China began to actively develop its space program, outpacing Russia in all core parameters and becoming second only to the U.S. In the future, the Chinese program is set to include more advanced navigation, communication, and reconnaissance systems that can support military operations from space. Since China cannot deploy these systems without also taking measures to ensure their security against attack, the value of PPWT for Beijing is declining.

China began to actively develop its space program, outpacing Russia in all core parameters and becoming second only to the U.S.

Obsolete Russian satellites

Although Russia has several space-based military systems that support the operations of its armed forces, none of them are operating at full capacity. The country has no radar imaging satellites, and only a limited number of photo satellites, with some of them expired. The Russian data relay satellite network, which can transmit images from reconnaissance satellites during the long periods when they are not in sight of ground stations, is also limited.

No wonder Dmitry Rogozin, then the head of Roscosmos, used outdated satellite images when making veiled threats against NATO in advance of the alliance’s 2022 summit in Madrid. One day before the opening of the event, the Roscosmos Telegram channel published a collection of images showing “the summit site and those very ‘decision-making centers’ supporting Ukrainian nationalists.” The images were labeled as if they had been taken recently by a Russian “Resurs-P” satellite; however, all of Russia’s “Resurs-P” satellites were out of commission at the time.

Russia’s space launch crisis further complicates its situation. Maintaining even limited constellations of spacecraft requires multiple launches, but Russia has carried out only 15-26 launches per year for the past eight years, far fewer than the United States or China. In 2023 alone, the U.S. had 109 successful launches, China had 66, and Russia had 19.

In 2023 alone, the U.S. had 109 successful launches, China had 66, and Russia had 19

Another major constraint is weak ground infrastructure. Although Moscow can put a group of military satellites into orbit, not all Russian military complexes can receive the signals they send back. Russia's space capabilities are generally poorly incorporated into its armed forces' command structure, making it difficult for Russian troops to benefit from them. Commanders have no understanding of how to leverage space-based assets and no technical or organizational prerequisites for their use. In addition, Russia’s shortage of satellites is compounded by the fact that its spacecraft are capable of staying in orbit for only half as long as their American counterparts, according to expert estimates.

In light of the above, Russia has a greater motivation to shoot down enemy satellites that the U.S. — or even China — does. That is precisely why Moscow is developing anti-satellite weapons, and why Washington is right to fear them. Proposals from Russian political and military experts only suggest a desire for further escalation.

Soviet-era innovations

In March 2018, less than three weeks before Russia’s presidential election, Vladimir Putin addressed the country’s Federal Assembly. After more than an hour of largely forgettable domestic policy talk, the topic shifted to defense, and the videos soon began: largely computer generated demonstrations of the supposedly groundbreaking Burevestnik cruise missile and Poseidon nuclear torpedo. However, the development of both projects began in Soviet times, and the same is true of Russia's space-based nuclear weapons.

In Washington, as part of a recent hearing before Congress, Pentagon representatives expressed concern about nuclear weapons and the potential for a nuclear explosion to be set off in Earth’s orbit. U.S. media sources familiar with the intelligence behind the statement clarified that the matter at hand concerns a nuclear weapon — and not a nuclear facility, as was previously thought. We still do not know what kind of weapon it may be, but in order to get a better idea of the range of possibilities it is instructive to examine two Soviet programs, the SK-1000 and the SP-2000, developed in the 1980s as a response to the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative (a.k.a. “Star Wars”).

The SK-1000 aimed to create a space-based missile defense echelon using satellites to engage a target orbiting Earth or a target descending from orbit into the atmosphere. This was to be accomplished by creating a sort of ballistic silo rocket that would first launch satellites into space, then use them to defeat enemy vehicles.

Russia is currently known to have a similar anti-satellite program called Burevestnik (not to be confused with the missile of the same name). As in the Soviet Union, the program creates maneuvering interceptor nanosatellites that are launched into orbit by a special rocket. Presumably, the purpose of Burevestnik satellites is to attack vehicles both in low-Earth and geostationary orbit.

The specific technology of engagement is unknown, but the construction of the satellites provides for the use of both a conventional explosive charge and a nuclear warhead.

Another Soviet-era space project of note is the air-based anti-satellite complex Kontakt, which comprised MiG-31D aircraft and 79M6 Kontakt missiles and was intended to shoot down enemy vehicles in low-Earth orbit. The project was closed in the 1990s before being resuscitated in 2009, and while its initial design provided for the use of a kinetic interceptor, there are no technical limitations that would prevent the system from using a nuclear payload.

The dangers of nuclear weapons in space

The main problem with nuclear weapons in space is that a nuclear explosion there would have indiscriminate and long-lasting effects. Some satellites could be damaged in the direct explosion. Others would suffer damage from the electromagnetic pulse of the explosion, as the vast majority of satellites are vulnerable to electromagnetic pulses and radiation.

The explosion would immediately leave behind an environment with high radiation levels, causing unprotected satellites in the affected orbit to lose functionality more quickly than normal. Such an explosion would affect all military, civilian, and commercial satellites operated by governments and companies around the world.

A nuclear explosion in space would affect all military, civilian, and commercial satellites

Two years ago, Russia’s then Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said his country was developing kinetic and directed energy weapons. Although he provided no specifics, he may have been referring to kinetic interceptors for satellites in orbit, or to nuclear directed-energy weapons.

Nuclear directed-energy weapons use a nuclear explosion to power the active medium of a laser, thereby turning it into a generator of electromagnetic radiation that disables the radio-electronic and optical elements of spacecraft. A directed-energy weapon is considered to be more practical in space than a nuclear warhead because it could be aimed more precisely, affecting onboard computers or blinding satellites without causing indiscriminate damage.

Some experts have speculated that the Russian laser system Peresvet, which has been put on combat standby duty, could be using the energy of a nuclear explosion to blind optical reconnaissance satellites. This hypothesis is yet to be confirmed, but Russia has possessed designs for such weapons since the 1950s.





In addition to the nuclear option, the state-owned Russian news agency RIA Novosti has written, Russia's Zevs space tug can also disable satellites.



The Zevs (“Zeus”) nuclear space tug

More bark than bite

And yet, whether the Russian military-industrial complex is capable of delivering such weapons remains a major question. Despite large budget expenditures, its capabilities remain limited. Roscosmos has long suffered from low profitability, accumulated debts, and mounting losses. After Russia’s limited invasion of Ukraine in 2014, the U.S. imposed sanctions against certain Roscosmos enterprises. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many of Russia’s international partners withdrew from what international contracts remained. As a result, limited access to Western technology, components, and financing brought additional costs to Roscosmos enterprises and caused them to postpone the fulfillment of their obligations.

Financial gaps led the corporation to cut its staff and seek new partners among developing countries like Algeria and Egypt. Last year, Russia's space corporation entered the borrowing market for the first time, issuing $112 million worth of bonds.

Although Vladimir Putin advertised the Burevestnik and Poseidon weapons systems way back when he was still just a three-term president, there have been no further demonstrations — let alone documented tests. Nevertheless, Putin's public statements on the possibility of placing nuclear weapons in space represent another escalatory step aimed at convincing the United States of Russia's superiority in armaments, thereby allowing the Kremlin to secure more favorable negotiation terms.

Putin's public statements on the possibility of placing nuclear weapons in space are another escalatory step

And his words have had at least some effect, as the Biden administration has already expressed its willingness to discuss with Moscow the topic of nuclear weapons in space even as Russia’s war against Ukraine rages on with no end in sight.

However, the Russian Foreign Ministry is ready to negotiate on strategic stability only if the United States changes its policy toward Moscow, stops supporting Ukraine, and agrees to discuss other areas of Russian interest, namely: NATO expansion, missile defense, and the proximity of U.S. and other alliance members' weapons to Russia's borders. In other words, the United States would have to accept the ultimatums Russia outlined in December 2021, before the full-scale invasion — an unrealistic scenario on all counts. The Kremlin understands this, of course, and is prepared to wait for as long as it takes — even if it takes generations for politicians in charge to change.

Whether we like it or not, war is coming to space



Frank Ledwidge
Former military intelligence officer, Senior Lecturer in Military Strategy and Law, University of Portsmouth

9 February 2024

With so many armed conflicts underway on Earth, the prospects of a war in space have received less attention in recent years. But that doesn’t mean preparations for a potential battle over cosmic resources have ended. The United States and China continue to develop their capacities to protect critical satellites while shooting those of their enemies out of orbit, while Russia lags further behind in third place. Most frontiers in human history have ultimately served as battlegrounds, and space — “the final frontier” — is unlikely to prove an exception.

A day without space…..

All around us, thousands of spacecraft cross the skies — so many that congestion in space is now a real problem. On a clear night you can see some of them, small starlike points of light cruising silently across the sky. These are a small fraction of the vast networks of satellites that provide a vital part of the nervous system of our civilised, connected society: all electronic financial transactions must be timestamped using the precision timing capabilities that only GPS can supply; our food and commodity supply chains are coordinated using the same technology; electronic devices, including the one on which you are reading this, would fail, as it too depends on GPS. One single day without space would be catastrophic.

And that’s just the normal, day-to-day world. From a military perspective, reconnaissance and communications (which are closely linked) are almost entirely dependent on space assets. The GPS system which underpins much of modern life was originally developed to assist precision targeting. It is still operated by the US Military and is one of the main functions of the new US Space force (founded by then-President Donald Trump in 2019). We saw in Ukraine the absolutely vital function fulfilled by Elon Musk’s Starlink system, possibly the single most important factor in Ukraine’s success up to now, as it has allowed Ukrainian units to communicate after the destruction (by cyber-attack) of their Viasat system early in the war.

Space as domain of conflict

All of this brings us to space as a battleground. NATO has considered space as the fifth ‘domain’ of combat (in addition to land, sea, air, and cyber) since 2019. In 2015, Russia renamed its air force the ‘Aerospace Force’ (VKS), and France – a major European space power – similarly renamed its air force to the ‘Air and Space Force’ in 2020. All major states are gearing up to protect their cosmic assets and to destroy those of their enemy.

Some of their preparations have been truly dangerous, with China (2007) and Russia (2021) using missiles to destroy old satellites of their own in order to demonstrate their capability to attack the satellites of others. These are called ‘direct ascent’ operations. The debris from these strikes produce clouds of debris that will remain in orbit for decades and that constitute a danger for all space-users. And should full-scale war arrive, the West’s space assets will face the threat of Chinese and Russian missiles and lasers, along with a specialized form of attack satellite that can approach and damage — or even literally take apart — enemy spacecraft. This kind of attack is called a ‘rendezvous and proximity’ operation. You can see an amusing but actually quite accurate depiction from the Netflix show “Space Force” here.

Where Russia’s relative capacity to wage war in space is declining, China’s is catching up quickly. Still, neither potential adversary is capable of posing the same level of threat to the United States that the United States is capable of posing to them. present a critical threat, but nowhere near as much a danger as the US presents to them. America is still by far the world’s most powerful space-faring nation, and it is conducting a major effort to defend and strengthen its space networks.

Taking war to the Moon

Both major space powers — the U.S. and China — have their sights set well beyond near-Earth orbit (and this is where things really move more into the realms of science fiction). Both countries are making plans for what to do on the moon, and they are also getting ready to use the space between Earth and Moon (‘cislunar’ space) as a potential theatre of conflict.

The first question is, of course, why are we spreading our conflicts to the moon? Can’t we leave the moon free of our local, petty, mass-casualty disputes? The answer to the first question is straightforward: resources. The moon is a vast repository of valuable minerals and chemicals that are very rare on Earth. These will be mined and exploited. The second question is essentially philosophical. The fact is that the moon is a frontier, and frontiers have, almost without exception in human history, become areas of chronic conflict. (Antarctica, protected by the Antarctic Treaty until 2057, offers a rare exception, but in the present international environment, there is little hope of reaching a similar legal or quasi-legal arrangement which will bind all nations.)

Both the U.S. and China are planning moon bases which will require energy from the moon itself, and it is very clear what the most important commodity on the moon will be – water. Scientists estimate that there are billions of tons of water embedded deep within lunar rocks. This is especially the case at parts of the lunar South Pole, and strategists already have their eyes on particular craters — especially Shackleton, which is always shaded from the sun. Vast infrastructure will be required to extract this water. It is here that China and the U.S. are likely to establish their first moon bases, and it is here where the potential for conflict may be highest.

Of course, like all bases, those on the moon will need resupplying from Earth, and those supply routes will need to be defended. America is already considering what they are calling the ‘Cislunar Highway Patrol System’ to ensure the safe passage of these resupply craft against attack by any potential enemy.

And the moon is only the beginning. The famous Astronomer Neil de Grasse Tyson once said that the first trillionaire will be made in space, and the source of their wealth will be minerals from asteroids. In other words, we stand at the brink of a new phase of space exploration: the age of space traders. It is a situation ripe with all the potential for piracy and resource-driven organized conflict that we have seen on Earth for thousands of years. Unfortunately, it looks that we will be taking our Earthly habits of war into the Cosmos.

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Will Mining the Moon and Asteroids Be Worth the Trouble?
Kevin Hurler
Fri, September 8, 2023 

The new era of space exploration is opening entirely new possibilities, including the tantalizing prospect of mining for resources on the Moon and asteroids. Sounds exciting—and potentially very profitable—but the reality of the situation is that space mining is completely uncharted territory. Plenty of prospecting needs to be done first to determine if these resources are even economically worth being harvested in the first place.

In the next decade, NASA and its collaborators are turning their gaze back to the Moon. The agency is looking to land astronauts there in 2025 as part of the ongoing Artemis program; this would be the first time an astronaut has landed on the Moon since the final Apollo mission in 1972

Conceptual image of a future asteroid mining mission. 

Indeed, space is packed with resources that humans will need to survive while exploring and working in the dark void, and for our economies to flourish. The Moon hosts large reservoirs of water ice, which could be mined and used to make drinkable water, oxygen gas for settlements, or rocket fuel for launches off the lunar surface. There’s also helium-3, rare earth elements (REEs), and even the dusty regolith to consider. Asteroids too are concentrated sources of valuable elements like platinum, which could be harvested, shipped back to Earth, and sold to industries. At the same time, both public and private space sectors view living in space as a viable opportunity to advance humanity.

The plans for space mining are, for the time being, painted in broad strokes, as space agencies and companies began laying the initial groundwork. Mining the Moon or asteroids for resources could be a huge shortcut in advancing plans for long-term habitability in space since the cost to launch anything from Earth’s surface remains incredibly high.

Before any ground is broken, however, companies and government agencies will need to run an analysis of the costs associated with mining the various resources to determine if it’s economically viable to process these materials directly in space, or to transport those materials back to Earth. They may very well decide that it’s simply not worth it, at least for the time being. Harvesting these resources in the harsh environment of space could very well be a logistical nightmare that requires decades of proof-of-concept. Even so, there are decades of research and innovation that points to just how possible space mining may be, and it all began years ago with the planning for the Apollo missions.

Mining materials directly where we need it

“The very first meeting in which resources from the Moon were discussed seriously, not just at a science fiction level, was in November of 1962,” Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Space Resources Program at Colorado School of Mines, told Gizmodo on a phone call. NASA was planning for Apollo at the time, and realizing that its astronauts will need a steady supply of oxygen, the space agency considered extracting it directly from the lunar surface, he explained. “It didn’t happen because we were there for just a couple of days, or a couple of hours, but the realization that you need the resources in-situ (i.e. directly at the site itself) has been around that long because of the extremely high cost, and high energy to launch anything from Earth,” said Abbud-Madrid.

For NASA, the word “mining” doesn’t quite capture the full picture of harvesting and using resources in space, so the agency instead uses the all-encompassing phrase, “in-situ resource utilization,” or ISRU. This umbrella term not only describes the process of mining the lunar surface for materials and resources, but also the use of those raw materials to produce new products

.

Conceptual image of an Artemis Moon mission.

Take, for example, ice. Lunar geologists have good reason to believe that reservoirs of water are ice tucked within soil in the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions. Those reservoirs are what NASA’s ill-fated Lunar Flashlight was set to map out. In a not too distant future, astronauts on the Moon could mine those reservoirs and melt the ice to top off their drinkable water supply. That water could also be chemically split on the Moon into oxygen and hydrogen, which could supply habitats and bases with breathable air or be used to synthesize rocket fuel and propellant.

“ISRU could mean mining something and bringing it back to Earth,” Ben Bussey, chief scientist at commercial lunar lander provider Intutive Machines, told Gizmodo during a phone chat. “But it could also mean things like building infrastructure that then makes it easier to do things on the Moon.”

Astronauts could also take ISRU one step further and strip metal out of the lunar soil to build infrastructure like habitats or launch equipment. Jerry Sanders, ISRU system capability lead at NASA’s Johnston Space Center, says lunar soil contains aluminum, iron, titanium, and silicon, and that those metals could then be processed out of the regolith, forged into purer forms, and used for construction. Regolith could also be a good source of oxygen, as the element is trapped within the soil’s silicate minerals.

“All the regolith has somewhere around 42% to 44% oxygen by mass,” Sanders explained during a phone call. “So when we talk about processing the regolith, you get a lot of oxygen.”

NASA is laying the groundwork

While astronauts aren’t going to be setting foot on the Moon until Artemis 3 launches in 2025, NASA already has early plans for ISRU operations. Sanders said that the Lunar Trailblazer satellite will continue the hunt for water ice on the Moon’s surface using an infrared spectrometer from orbit. Since infrared light is absorbed by water, scientists can use readings from the probe to potentially identify the size and distribution of these reservoirs of ice, much like Lunar Flashlight was supposed to do.

Meanwhile, NASA’s VIPER—Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover—mission will drill into the lunar surface to find and analyze water ice directly. Lunar Trailblazer and VIPER are scheduled to launch in early and late 2024, respectively. Once this initial prospecting work is done, in a few decades, ISRU operations will be much larger.

“That far out in the future, you will be looking at large scale operations. You will have machines that will be drilling, that will be excavating, and that will be transporting material to a certain plant,” Abbud-Madrid said. “Everybody is going to need power, communication, and transport, so you’re going to have all of that infrastructure there.”

While NASA is planning its own missions to explore the possibilities for ISRU, the agency is also trying to set an example that private space companies can follow. NASA has outsourced its work to private space contractors before—rockets from SpaceX deliver agency payloads to orbit and new spacesuits for the Artemis program are being designed by Axiom Space, for example. In those cases, NASA had developed some sort of engineering framework or jumping off point for space companies to follow, but ISRU is terra incognita, and Sanders says that the private space industry needs to determine if mining on the Moon is even logistically possible before companies jump on board
.

Conceptual image of lunar habitat. Image: ESA/Foster + Partners

“Public-private partnerships and commercial involvement is becoming more and more important to succeeding and implementing [NASA’s] objectives,” Sanders said. “Before we can fully commercialize [ISRU], we need to basically help raise the whole technology portfolio such that NASA and the commercial industry feel comfortable enough to take on the job without going bankrupt.”

The prospect of mining asteroids

While the Moon’s surface could be a major source for water, oxygen, and more common metals like aluminum and iron, asteroids could be a source of precious elements. Platinum and nickel, for example, are concentrated in the core of metallic asteroids. As Abbud-Madrid explained, as an asteroid grows, its gravity increases, pulling these denser elements into it. Once mined, those metals could be shipped back to Earth to be sold to various industries. With that in mind, asteroids seem like a no-brainer for mining opportunities, but NASA doesn’t currently have any immediate plans to target them.

“We are currently focusing mostly on the Moon because it has the nearest term return on investment,” Sanders said.

Even though the public sector is focusing on the Moon, some private space companies are forgoing it in favor of asteroids. AstroForge is a California-based asteroid mining company that raised $13 million in funding in May 2022. The company has reportedly planned a method of mining asteroids anywhere from 66 to 4,920 feet (20 to 1,500 meters) in diameter by breaking them apart in space and collecting material, as opposed to landing on the rock and mining it directly.


Artist’s impression of metal-rich asteroid Psyche.

“Platinum-group metals are used across the board—they reduce vehicle emissions, they’re used in chemotherapy drugs, and every electronic device you have has a number of these elements,” AstroForge co-founder Matt Gialich told Gizmodo during a phone interview in May 2022. “The real dream here for us is to go and utilize deep space for resources.”

In January, AstroForge announced its two flights set for 2023. In April, AstroForge was expected to launch a spacecraft into orbit with a pre-loaded sample to serve as an asteroid simulant to demonstrate the company’s in-orbit extraction technology in a collaboration with OrbAstro. A spokesperson from AstroForge told Gizmodo in an email that the mission, called Brokkr-1, was “successfully launched, is alive, and is in a healthy state.” Another mission is currently scheduled for October 2023 which will see the company partner with OrbAstro, Intuitive Machines, and Dawn Aerospace to observe an asteroid target in deep space.

Is mining the moon and asteroids worth it?

So, will it all be worth it in the end? In short, probably—but there are a number of factors to consider.

Though the Moon boasts resources that can enable extended habitation, and asteroids teem with metals that are highly valued here on Earth, a space mining industry cannot thrive without a market for these commodities. A nation that is willing to purchase the oxygen processed from lunar regolith for its settlement on the Moon, for example, will drive the demand to mine more lunar regolith. At the same time, companies and agencies interested in space mining need to do a basic cost-benefit analysis of the resources they’re interested in. If they’re too difficult to obtain and too difficult to get to a customer, then the business case to mine those resources gets weaker.

“How things like prospecting and validation of a resource occurs on Earth, there’s a standard process to that. You need to find something, you need to find out if it is economically viable to extract it and use it,” Bussey said. “You can have a great source of something, but it could be too hard to get. I think that the same thing will be true on the Moon.”

Using lunar soil for rocket fuel and selling platinum harvested from an asteroid are fantastical images that feel too far-fetched to ever be feasible, but space mining—even on a small scale—is almost certain to happen in our lifetime.

Assuming that space miners decide a resource is economically viable enough, and that customers are willing to pay for it, the space mining industry can establish itself and expand. That expansion could fuel a completely secondary economy. The industry will need power, mining equipment, shipping logistics, and staff, all of which could be provided by other companies that are looking for their slice of the pie—the same way people tried to cash in on the California Gold Rush.

“Just like mining on Earth in the 1800s when people came to the west to look for gold and silver, there was also all this extraction,” Abbud-Marin said. “People sold shovels and picks and axes and made money out of the miners. Same thing there.”

Using lunar soil for rocket fuel and selling platinum harvested from an asteroid are fantastical images that feel too far-fetched to ever be feasible, but space mining—even on a small scale—is almost certain to happen in our lifetime. The science points to plenty of resources in our cosmic backyard that have strong financial incentives behind them, but the economics of space mining, for now, are yet to be fleshed out. Even still, civilizations have been living off the land since the dawn of humanity, and as we return to long-term space habitation and exploration, living off of the Moon and asteroids represents the next frontier.

Images: NASA

Gizmodo

 

NASA completes last OSIRIS-REx test before asteroid sample delivery

Reports and Proceedings

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

 

IMAGE: A TRAINING MODEL OF THE SAMPLE RETURN CAPSULE IS SEEN IS SEEN DURING A DROP TEST IN PREPARATION FOR THE RETRIEVAL OF THE SAMPLE RETURN CAPSULE FROM NASA'S OSIRIS-REX MISSION, WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30, 2023, AT THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE'S UTAH TEST AND TRAINING RANGE. THE SAMPLE WAS COLLECTED FROM ASTEROID BENNU IN OCTOBER 2020 BY NASA’S OSIRIS-REX SPACECRAFT AND WILL RETURN TO EARTH ON SEPTEMBER 24TH, LANDING UNDER PARACHUTE AT THE UTAH TEST AND TRAINING RANGE. view more 

CREDIT: CREDITS: NASA/KEEGAN BARBER

A team led by NASA in Utah’s West Desert is in the final stages of preparing for the arrival of the first U.S. asteroid sample – slated to land on Earth in September.

A mockup of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer) sample capsule was dropped Wednesday from an aircraft and landed at the drop zone at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range in the desert outside Salt Lake City. This was part of the mission’s final major test prior to arrival of the actual capsule on Sept. 24 with its sample of asteroid Bennu, collected in space almost three years ago.

 

“We are now mere weeks away from receiving a piece of solar system history on Earth, and this successful drop test ensures we’re ready,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Pristine material from asteroid Bennu will help shed light on the formation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, and perhaps even on how life on Earth began.”

 

This drop test follows a series of earlier rehearsals – capsule recovery, spacecraft engineering operations, and sample curation procedures – conducted earlier this spring and summer.

 

Now, with less than four weeks until the spacecraft’s arrival, the OSIRIS-REx team is nearing the end of rehearsals and ready for the actual delivery.

"I am immensely proud of the efforts our team has poured into this endeavor,” said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “Just as our meticulous planning and rehearsal prepared us to collect a sample from Bennu, we have honed our skills for sample recovery.”

 

The capsule is carrying an estimated 8.8 ounces of rocky material collected from the surface of the asteroid Bennu in 2020. Researchers will study the sample in the coming years to learn about how our planet and solar system formed, as well as the origin of organics that may have led to life on Earth.

 

The capsule will enter Earth’s atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. EDT (8:42 a.m. MDT), traveling about 27,650 mph. NASA’s live coverage of the capsule landing starts at 10 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. MDT), and will air on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

 

“We are now in the final leg of this seven-year journey, and it feels very much like the last few miles of a marathon, with a confluence of emotions like pride and joy coexisting with a determined focus to complete the race well,” said Rich Burns, project manager for OSIRIS-REx at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

 

Once located and packaged for travel, the capsule will be flown to a temporary clean room on the military range, where it will undergo initial processing and disassembly in preparation for its journey by aircraft to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where the sample will be documented, cared for, and distributed for analysis to scientists worldwide.

 

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university leads the science team and the mission's science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft and provides flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Curation for OSIRIS-REx, including processing the sample when it arrives on Earth, will take place at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. International partnerships on this mission include the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument from CSA (the Canadian Space Agency) and asteroid sample science collaboration with JAXA’s (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Hayabusa2 mission. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

 

To learn more about the asteroid sample recovery mission visit:

 

https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

Who owns the moon? A space lawyer answers


Frans von der Dunk, Professor of Space Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Sun, April 10, 2022, 

Edwin E. 'Buzz' Aldrin Jr. poses for a photograph beside the U.S. flag deployed on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969. Neil A. Armstrong/NASA/AP Photo

Most likely, this is the best-known picture of a flag ever taken: Buzz Aldrin standing next to the first U.S. flag planted on the Moon. For those who knew their world history, it also rang some alarm bells. Only less than a century ago, back on Earth, planting a national flag in another part of the world still amounted to claiming that territory for the fatherland. Did the Stars and Stripes on the moon signify the establishment of an American colony?

When people hear for the first time that I am a lawyer practicing and teaching something called “space law,” the question they ask most frequently, often with a big smile or a twinkle in the eye, is: “So tell me, who owns the moon?”

Of course, claiming new national territories had been very much a European habit, applied to non-European parts of the world. In particular the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch, the French and the English created huge colonial empires. But while their attitude was very Europe-centric, the legal notion that planting a flag was an act of establishing sovereignty quickly stuck and became accepted worldwide as part and parcel of the law of nations.

Obviously, the astronauts had more important things on their mind than contemplating the legal meaning and consequences of that planted flag, but luckily the issue had been taken care of prior to the mission. Since the beginning of the space race the United States knew that for many people around the world the sight of a U.S. flag on the Moon would raise major political issues. Any suggestion that the moon might become, legally speaking, part of U.S. backwaters might fuel such concerns, and possibly give rise to international disputes harmful to both the U.S. space program and U.S. interests as a whole.

By 1969, decolonization may have destroyed any notion that non-European parts of the world, though populated, were not civilized and thus justifiably made subject to European sovereignty – however, there was not a single person living on the moon; even life itself was absent.

Still, the simple answer to the question of whether Armstrong and Aldrin by way of their small ceremony did transform the moon, or at least a major part thereof, into U.S. territory turns out to be “no.” They, nor NASA, nor the U.S. government intended the U.S. flag to have that effect.

The first outer space treaty

Most importantly, that answer was enshrined in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, to which both the United States and the Soviet Union as well as all other space-faring nations, had become a party. Both superpowers agreed that “colonization” on Earth had been responsible for tremendous human suffering and many armed conflicts that had raged over the last centuries. They were determined not to repeat that mistake of the old European colonial powers when it came to decide on the legal status of the moon; at least the possibility of a “land grab” in outer space giving rise to another world war was to be avoided. By that token, the moon became something of a “global commons” legally accessible to all countries – two years prior to the first actual manned moon landing.

So, the U.S. flag was not a manifestation of claiming sovereignty, but of honoring the U.S. taxpayers and engineers who made Armstrong, Aldrin, and third astronaut Michael Collins’ mission possible. The two men carried a plaque that they “came in peace for all mankind,” and of course Neil’s famous words echoed the same sentiment: his “small step for man” was not a “giant leap” for the United States, but “for mankind.” Furthermore, the United States and NASA lived up to their commitment by sharing the moon rocks and other samples of soil from the lunar surface with the rest of the world, whether by giving them away to foreign governments or by allowing scientists from all over the globe to access them for scientific analysis and discussion. In the midst of the Cold War, this even included scientists from the Soviet Union.

Case closed, no need for space lawyers anymore then? No need for me to prepare University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s space law students for further discussions and disputes on the lunar law, right?

No space lawyers needed?

Not so fast. While the legal status of the Moon as a “global commons” accessible to all countries on peaceful missions did not meet any substantial resistance or challenge, the Outer Space Treaty left further details unsettled. Contrary to the very optimistic assumptions made at the time, so far humankind has not returned to the moon since 1972, making lunar land rights largely theoretical.

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That is, until a few years ago when several new plans were hatched to go back to the moon. In addition at least two U.S. companies, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, which have serious financial backing, have started targeting asteroids for the purpose of mining their mineral resources. Geek note: Under the aforementioned Outer Space Treaty, the moon and other celestial bodies such as asteroids, legally speaking, belong in the same basket. None of them can become the “territory” of one sovereign state or another.

The very fundamental prohibition under the Outer Space Treaty to acquire new state territory, by planting a flag or by any other means, failed to address the commercial exploitation of natural resources on the moon and other celestial bodies. This is a major debate currently raging in the international community, with no unequivocally accepted solution in sight yet. Roughly, there are two general interpretations possible.

So you want to mine an asteroid?

Countries such as the United States and Luxembourg (as the gateway to the European Union) agree that the moon and asteroids are “global commons,” which means that each country allows its private entrepreneurs, as long as duly licensed and in compliance with other relevant rules of space law, to go out there and extract what they can, to try and make money with it. It’s a bit like the law of the high seas, which are not under the control of an individual country, but completely open to duly licensed law-abiding fishing operations from any country’s citizens and companies. Then, once the fish is in their nets, it is legally theirs to sell.

On the other hand, countries such as Russia and somewhat less explicitly Brazil and Belgium hold that the moon and asteroids belong to humanity as a whole. And therefore the potential benefits from commercial exploitation should somehow accrue for humanity as a whole – or at least should be subjected to a presumably rigorous international regime to guarantee humanity-wide benefits. It’s a bit like the regime originally established for harvesting mineral resources from the deep seabed. Here, an international licensing regime was created as well as an international enterprise, which was to mine those resources and generally share the benefits among all countries.

While in my view the former position certainly would make more sense, both legally and practically, the legal battle by no means is over. Meanwhile, the interest in the moon has been renewed as well – at least China, India and Japan have serious plans to go back there, raising the stakes even higher. Therefore, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln we will need to teach our students about these issues for many years to come. While ultimately it is up to the community of states to determine whether common agreement can be reached on either of the two positions or maybe somewhere in between, it is of crucial importance that agreement can be reached one way or another. Such activities developing without any law that is generally applicable and accepted would be a worst-case scenario. While not a matter of colonization anymore, it may have all the same harmful results.


This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:

If Earth falls, will interstellar space travel be our salvation?


Mining the moon for rocket fuel to get us to Mars


New telescope will scan the skies for asteroids on collision course with Earth

Frans von der Dunk has a consultancy addressing issues of space law and policy. 

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THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS

A solution to the climate crisis: mining the moon, researchers say

Oliver Milman in New York
Wed, 8 February 2023

Photograph: Richard A Brooks/AFP/Getty Images

Proponents of a “moonshot” idea to deal with global heating have been handed a new, very literal, interpretation by researchers who have proposed firing plumes of moon dust from a gun into space in order to deflect the sun’s rays away from Earth.

The seemingly outlandish concept, outlined in a new research paper, would involve creating a “solar shield” in space by mining the moon of millions of tons of its dust and then “ballistically eject[ing]” it to a point in space about 1m miles from Earth, where the floating grains would partially block incoming sunlight.

Related: Can geoengineering fix the climate? Hundreds of scientists say not so fast

“A really exciting part of our study was the realization that the natural lunar dust grains are just the right size and composition for efficiently scattering sunlight away from Earth,” said Ben Bromley, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Utah, who led the research, published in Plos Climate.

“Since it takes much less energy to launch these grains from the moon’s surface, as compared with an Earth launch, the ‘moonshot’ idea really stood out for us.”

Bromley and two other researchers considered a variety of properties, including coal and sea salt, that could dim the sun by as much as 2% if fired into space. The team eventually settled on the dust found on the moon, although millions of tons would have to be mined, sifted and loaded into a ballistic device, such as an electromagnetic rail gun, and fired into space each year into order to maintain this solar shield.

Getting this mining and projective equipment to the moon would be a “significant project”, Bromley conceded, and might also require the positioning of a new space station in an area called the L1 Lagrange point, found between Earth and the sun, in order to “redirect packets of dust on to orbits that could provide shade for as long as possible”.

Such an approach would act as a “fine-tuned dimmer switch, leaving our planet untouched”, Bromley said, an advantage over other solar geoengineering proposals that have raised concerns about the environmental impact of spraying reflective particles within the Earth’s atmosphere.

The moon dust would have to be continually propelled into space in order to take the edge off global heating, however, or risk a so-called “termination shock” whereby temporary cooling is abruptly stopped and the world is left to rapidly heat up. Bromley insisted that the research’s sci-fi idea is no substitute for the primary task of cutting planet-heating emissions in the first place.

“Nothing should distract us from reducing greenhouse gas emissions here on Earth,” he said. “Our strategy may just be a moonshot, but we should explore all possibilities, in case we need more time to do the work here at home.”

Tinkering with the world’s climate, including attempts to reflect sunlight, is a controversial and still relatively fringe response to the climate crisis. It has gained some traction amid repeated warnings that countries are not slashing emissions quickly enough to prevent disaster, however, with the US government launching a research project around the concept last year.

Related: Can geoengineering fix the climate? Hundreds of scientists say not so fast

Ted Parson, an expert in environmental law at UCLA, said the moon dust proposal was “fun, scientifically interesting speculation” that was unlikely to be put into practice, partially due to the larger cost and lack of control compared with Earth-based geoengineering options.

“There seems to be a bit of uptick of interest in space-based geoengineering schemes more broadly,” Parson said. “They were long dismissed as wildly impractical due to technical and cost considerations, but my impression is that the ongoing reduction of launch costs is piquing people’s interest and strange ideas are bubbling around.”

But opponents of solar geoengineering, whether on Earth or in space, argue that it is an unhelpful and potentially dangerous distraction from the urgent imperative to transition away from burning fossil fuels.

“The idea to mine the moon or near-Earth asteroids in order to artificially block parts of the sunlight is no solution to the ongoing and intensifying climate crisis,” said Frank Biermann, professor of global sustainability governance at Utrecht University.

“What is needed are massive cutbacks in greenhouse gas emissions, which require rapid technological advancement and socioeconomic transitions. Mining the moon is not the answer that we need.”