Recently, US President Trump signed an order called “International Support Guarantee for the Exploitation and Use of Space Resources”, which established the United States ’policy of exploiting and utilizing space resources such as the moon and asteroids. Other celestial bodies are not common human wealth. Undoubtedly, the United States is actively working to return to the moon, and attempts to “privatize” space have become more apparent.
At present, the strategic significance of the moon has been gradually recognized by various countries. The moon itself is rich in mineral resources. It is inferred that in addition to minerals, the surface of the moon also has reserves of 1 million to 5 million tons of helium-3, which can be used as an ideal raw material for nuclear fusion. At the same time, due to the low gravity of the moon, the construction of a launch site can greatly reduce the cost of space launch loads; because there is no atmosphere, the efficiency of building solar power stations will also be higher. Moreover, the exploration of large space activities such as the moon has a great effect on the national economic and technological development. Now the United States is ahead of the world in information, biology, new materials and other high-tech technologies, a large part of which comes from the digestion, optimization and secondary development of the “Apollo Project” engineering technology. These temptations to the United States are huge.
For the current US government, vigorously promoting the United States to march into space and return to the moon is its long-term goal. This is not the first time the US government ’s order to mine the moon has paved the way for the monopoly of natural resources in space. As early as 2015, the United States passed the “Commercial Space Launch Competition Act” to encourage domestic private companies to mine deposits on the moon and other celestial bodies. The United States also announced in 2019 that it will restart its moon landing program codenamed “Artemis”. The goal is to send astronauts to the moon by 2024 and establish a sustainable human base on the moon by 2028.
In addition, in pursuit of world leadership in the field of aerospace, the United States is also actively promoting the development of commercial aerospace. In addition to the U.S. government ’s successive signing of the No. 2 Space Policy Directive and No. 3 Space Policy Directive in 2018 to improve the regulation of commercial aerospace, NASA has also cooperated with commercial companies such as “Blue Origin” and SpaceX to reduce the cost of developing space. Company cooperation. “Blue Origin” announced the “Blue Moon” lunar device designed for the “Artemis” project in May last year, and SpaceX is also developing a reusable launch system called “Starship”. These commercial aerospace figures will undoubtedly provide support for military aerospace operations.
However, in the process of attempting to promote the “enclosure movement” of the moon, in addition to overcoming technical difficulties, the United States also has to face such problems as the “Moon Agreement” International treaty restrictions and pressure from the international community. Alexei Pushkov, Chairman of the Information Policy Committee of the Russian Federation Commission, commented on the United StatesThe government’s current signing of this order for commercial exploitation of space resources stated that the United States has given itself the power to exploit space resources and refused to consider the moon and other planets as common human property. Although the United States is not a signatory to the “Moon Agreement”, its actions are contrary to the consensus that “the exploration and use of the moon is the wealth of all mankind.” Therefore, as the US moon landing program is about to unfold, the United States needs to find a reason for itself to be “sounding.” According to reports, just a few days before the signing of the executive order, NASA released the “Moon Continuous Exploration and Development Plan”, which clarifies the mission goals and steps of the “Artemis” plan. It can be seen that the US approach is to establish a policy basis for its ability to “first-come-first-served” lunar resources, and the international community should be highly vigilant about this.
(Originally titled “Alarming Beauty to Perform” Enclosure Movement “on the Moon”)