Time to save moon?

By Richard Hollingham

I have always found the first words spoken on the surface of the Moon a little disappointing. All the “giant leap” stuff sounds a bit contrived and, strangely, underwhelming. I much prefer the last words, spoken by Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan on 14 December 1972.

“I’d just like to record that America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow,” he said. “We leave as we came, and God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind,” he concluded. Then he climbed up the ladder, shut the hatch and headed home. Here was a man who could really string a sentence together.

Cernan still exudes a straight-talking confidence, and when I last interviewed him a few years ago, another phrase of his sticks in my mind: “When are we going back?” Until recently, it did not seem likely that we ever would. Over the last few years, the established agencies have lacked focus, ambition and, above all, cash – but now the competition to return to the Moon is heating up.

Twenty-six teams are currently competing to land a robot on the Moon’s surface for the Google Lunar X Prize, US company Space Adventures is urging multi-millionaire adventurers to sign up for its ‘lunar mission’ to circumnavigate the Moon, and China is talking about building a permanent base. If even a fraction of these ambitions are realised, could the Moon become a free-for-all: a final frontier, with no rules, no laws and all a long way from home? After all, no-one owns it.

“The Moon is meant to be the common heritage of all humanity,” suggests archaeologist and anthropologist Kathryn Denning from York University, Toronto. “But nobody has jurisdiction. Nobody is calling the shots, and when nobody calls the shots, everybody is calling the shots.”

Denning’s research covers a fascinating realm, taking in human endeavours in interstellar travel and the search for extraterrestrial life. Knowing what she does about human behaviour, Denning has become increasingly concerned about the future of the Moon, from its landscape to its heritage.

Don’t tread on me

Take a simple example: Gene Cernan’s final footprints in the Taurus-Littrow valley. Nasa recently issued guidelines to protect the Apollo 11 and 17 landing sites, describing them as “off-limits”, including “close proximity limits for ground-travel and no-fly zones to avoid spraying rocket exhaust or dust onto ageing but historic equipment”.

But, as we all know, saying “don’t touch” does not always work.

“Designating heritage on Earth doesn’t necessarily protect it that well,” says Denning. “It simply drives up the value, increases tourism and can increase looting. The surest way to make something very valuable is to tell someone they’re not meant to own it.”

It would certainly be a shame if Cernan’s steps were scuffed or a bit of Apollo hardware was damaged. But a few bootprints or the odd discarded Moon buggy are not Denning’s main concerns. “What I think [these sites] are doing is creating a territorial claim,” she says. “If you have sites that are enshrined as being the earliest occupation sites on the Moon, then that gives a sense of priority.”

So, although America may have claimed the Moon “for all mankind”, that does not necessarily mean we are all entitled to share it. Whoever gets there first could exploit the Moon for tourism, mining or perhaps use it as a staging post to the planets.

But does it matter?

One small step for a mine

“What we’re looking at here with the move to private space exploration will be private resource exploitation,” says Denning. “We’ll ask ‘who said you can do that?’ and the answer will be ‘well, no-one said that we couldn’t’. And I have a fundamental problem with that.”

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