Why the fight for the Moon will take place here on Earth
Ways forward
Our best initial response may be modest, taking its cue from overlooked sites on Earth. Small terrestrial resource pools, such as lakes bordered by several villages, or fish stocks are often managed through approachesdeveloped locallyby the key players involved.
These suggest that a first step toward lunar-resource governance will be creating agreement among users. This should focus on the nature of the resources at stake, how their benefits should be distributed, and, crucially, the worst-case scenarios they seek to avoid. For example, actors will likely need to decide whether the peaks of eternal light should be managed as a patch of high-value real estate or as a volume of energy output to be shared. It may also be worth deciding on a case-by-case basis.
Another challenge will be fostering compliance with the governance arrangements that are devised. To that end, lunar users would be well advised to build shared installations, such as landing and supply facilities, to function as carrots that can be withheld from misbehaving actors. Such partial solutions will be difficult to add after a country or company has made irreversible investments in mission designs. Clearly, the time to devise these approaches is now.
This article byTony Milligan, Senior Researcher in Ethics with the Cosmological Visionaries project,King’s College Londonis republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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