NASA is accepting proposals for a new moon-mining program to explore the lunar surface for valuable resources like helium-3 and rare-earth metals. The Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown program (CATALYST) is a no funds exchanged Space Agreement Act and final proposals are due on March 17th, 2014. One or more private companies will win a contract with NASA to build prospecting robots, the first step toward mining the moon. However, the possibility of lunar-mining has triggered debate as according to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty of the United Nations, countries are prohibited from laying claim to the moon. Ian Crawford, a planetary science professor, said that there is a strong case for developing international law in this area because in 1967 it was not envisaged that anyone other than nation states would be able to explore the moon. Clearly, that is changing now and there is a case for developing the outer space treaty to include private organisations that may wish to exploit the moon.\n\nFor more on this subject see EMD Memoir 101, Chapter 7 - Avoiding Extraterrestrial Claim Jumping: Economic Development Policy for Space Exploration /Exploitation, by James F. Reilly, II, and Chapter 9, page 201, by Campbell, et al., of the Memoir 101 (search this Web Portal for Memoir 101 and more information on its coverage.
Resource Portal for I2M Clients, Associates, and Geoscientists
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-