Space agencies are hungry for sources other than the taxpayer. With this has come the lure of private capital. “This Moon Village should mean partners from all over the world contributing to this community with robotic and astronaut missions and support communication satellites.” Manifest destiny can also be collaborative. “A Moon Village shouldn’t just mean some houses, a church, and a town hall,” explained the newly appointed Director-General of ESA, Johann-Dietrich Wörner. The European Space Agency could only be encouraged, having already mentioned the idea of a Moon Village in 2015. “These ice deposits might be utilized as an in situ resource in future exploration of the Moon.” It seemed to have discovered water-ice, a point confirmed by NASA in a 2018 publication that can barely conceal the delight of its authors. The Moon had been spared such proposed rushes at least till 2008, when the Chandrayaan-1 probe from the Indian Space Research Organisation crashed into the Shackleton Crater in the lunar south pole. After a few “back-of-the-envelope calculations” (always reassuring), taking one metric ton from the moon each day would take a mere “220m years to deplete 1% of the moon’s mass.” There would be no change of orbit, or to the gravitational force that affects the Earth’s tides. “The moon has a mass of 73q tons,” claims the colourful JPL presentation. They anticipate the Cassandras and naysayers who fear that humans are merely going to deplete the next resource, causing yet another catastrophe of incalculable proportions. Such NASA promotions tend to be tinselled with confidence and brio. And now, nations are looking upwards to a potential lunar gold rush.” “Across history, human development has relied upon the finite resources of the Earth.” An unfortunate state of affairs, but never fear: “the moon – a seemingly barren rock – may actually be a treasure trove of rare resources vital to Earth’s future. Such language is also self-perpetuating: the plunderer is only as good as the amount taken success is dependent on constant replenishment and expansion.Ī presentation from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory sports the message that would sit comfortably with any empire builder in history. All of this is given the gloss of manifest destiny and human experiment. The discussion about mining the Moon resembles that of previous conquests: the division of territory the grabbing of resources language of theft and plunder.
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