It’s not ideal to have a large crew of human beings running these kinds of operations day in and day out, but it’s equally unclear how much can be delegated to autonomous systems. The cold temperatures and radiation could endanger humans and degrade sensitive equipment. They also propose setting up neutral “safety zones'' between different lunar bases to prevent interference and conflict between countries and companies.īut what they can't tell us is how we’ll actually access the moon’s water. But more importantly, the Artemis Accords allow the US to dictate the terms of lunar mining first, before other countries can. The tenets touch on issues that include emergency assistance services and interoperability of technology standards. Artemis is the most important step toward establishing a permanent American presence on the moon. On May 15, NASA announced the Artemis Accords (PDF)-a proposed legal framework for mining on the moon, named after NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the lunar surface in 2024. The US has designs on lunar water too, of course. One NASA estimate suggests there might be 600 million metric tons of lunar ice to harvest, and other higher-end estimates say one billion metric tons is a possibility. Creating a sustainable source of fuel in space could reduce the costs and hazards associated with heavy liftoffs. That’s important because Earth’s atmosphere and gravitational pull necessitate use of tons of fuel per second when rockets launch. If you can stop at the moon’s orbit or a lunar base to refuel, you no longer need to bring all your propellant with you as you take off, making your spacecraft significantly lighter and cheaper to launch. Why? If you split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then liquefy those constituents, you have rocket fuel.

But there’s one resource in particular that has excited scientists, rocket engineers, space agency officials, industry entrepreneurs-virtually anyone with a vested interest in making spaceflight to distant worlds more affordable. Non-radioactive helium-3 could one day power nuclear fusion reactors.

Gold, platinum, and many rare earth metals await extraction to be used in next-generation electronics. The moon is a treasure trove of valuable resources.

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