Concentrated Lunar Resources: Imminent Implications for Governance and Justice

TL;DR

The paper discusses the imminent risks of crowding and interference at key lunar sites of scientific, resource, and settlement interest, emphasizing the need for proactive governance to prevent conflicts and preserve opportunities.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of potential conflicts at lunar sites and proposes governance and ethical frameworks based on Earth analogs to manage lunar resource utilization.

Findings

Multiple lunar sites face crowding risks from diverse missions.

Interference among actors could lead to significant opportunity losses.

Legal and ethical considerations are crucial for sustainable lunar exploration.

Abstract

Numerous missions planned for the next decade are likely to target a handful of smal sites of interest on the Moon's surface, creating risks of crowding and interference at these locations. The Moon presents finite and scarce areas with rare topography or concentrations of resources of special value. Locations of interest to science, notably for astronomy, include the Peaks of Eternal Light, the coldest of the cold traps and smooth areas on the far side. Regions richest in physical resources could also be uniquely suited to settlement and commerce. Such sites of interest are both few and small. Typically, there are fewer than ten key sites of each type, each site spanning a few kilometres across. We survey the implications for different kins of mission and find that the diverse actors pursuing incomptible ends at these sites could soon crowd and interfere with each other, leaving almost all actors worse off. Without proactive measures to prevent these outcomes, lunar actors are likely to experience significant losses of opportunity. We highlight the legal, policy, and ethical ramifications. Insights from research on comparable sites on Earth present a path toward managing lunar crowding and interference grounded in ethical and practical near-term considerations. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Astronomy from the Moon: the next decades'.