Who owns this?
Is it America—the country that planted a flag on it?
Or this man...
...who has been selling plots of it for almost 40 years?
Or is it us...
...and anyone else who bought one and has the certificate to prove it?
Today many believe the Moon could be the next frontier...
...for tourism, space exploration...
...or even the mining of precious natural resources
Which means this question...
...might be about to become a lot more important
In 1969 an estimated 650m people...
...watched as Neil Armstrong took his first step on the surface of the Moon
Five more landings followed
And then for almost 50 years no humans went back
That is about to change
There are dozens of lunar missions planned over the next 20 years...
...and some will carry crews
The first to land could be in 2024...
...when NASA hopes to send a crew to the lunar south pole...
...where it’s believed water may be frozen in craters
That crew may well include the first woman to land on the Moon
After years of being left alone...
...why is the Moon hot property once again?
This book could have the answers...
...or at least the man who wrote it might
He’s Oliver Morton, senior editor at The Economist
The most simple reason perhaps is tourism
We do live on a planet now...
...with an extraordinary number of very rich people...
...and only some of them need to think this is a cool idea for it to happen
There is a Japanese billionaire who has...
...ordered a space flight from SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company
The Chinese have talked about putting people onto the Moon
Then the Americans are thinking about going back...
...because the Chinese are thinking about going
Of course none of this would be happening if you still had to spend...
...sort of like a huge chunk of America’s national budget to go to the Moon
But in fact you probably don’t now
The price of a space launch...
...the most expensive part of going to the Moon...
...has dropped substantially
In 1981 NASA paid almost $62,000 a kilo...
...to launch the Space Shuttle
Last year SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy...
...cost just under one and a half thousand dollars a kilo
That’s a real term drop by a factor of 40
There’s another reason the Moon may be an attractive destination...
...its resources...
...one of which is vital for supporting life in space
One of the things you don’t have much of in space near the Earth is water
But in the past few decades...
...ice has been discovered in craters of the Moon’s poles
So that’s something that would be really useful...
...if you’re building a Moon base...
..because you wouldn’t have to ship it up from Earth
And there’s the potential of mineable treasure...
...including highly valuable platinum-group minerals...
...left over from asteroid impacts
And the very rare isotope helium-3...
...absorbed by the Moon’s surface from the sun...
...and used in nuclear fusion to produce a clean source of energy
There are plans to mine both
But Oliver isn’t convinced
If the platinum-group metals are there in really, really localised rich ways...
...there might be something to be done there...
...but we don’t know that that’s the case
The helium-3 is there but if you’re doing something really difficult...
...like trying to recreate the power that drives the sun in a little magnetic bottle
...do you really want to make life harder by saying...
...oh yeah and I’ll use Moon dust too?
I don’t think that’s a very serious idea
As well as its resources...
...the Moon can teach scientists more about the history of the solar system
And it could be a proving ground for further space exploration...
...for example for a manned mission to Mars
But ultimately the main driver for returning to the Moon is nationalism
I think the politics of the Moon will probably reflect the politics of the Earth
Make no mistake about it...
...we’re in a space race today, just as we were in the 1960s
And the stakes are even higher
Boundless vistas are beheld from perilous peaks
I hope that our spaceworkers will boldly scale the high peaks...
...on their journey to develop the space industry
If the two nations that both have an interest in...
...a crater on the south pole of the Moon...
...also have an interest in say the South China Seas...
...then the chances that they might be...
...somewhat daggers drawn on the Moon is obviously higher
And this is where who owns what on the Moon really starts to matter
Which brings us back to this man
He’s Dennis Hope
In 1980 he claimed ownership of the Moon...
...and started selling it off for around $25 an acre
He says it’s netted him millions
Apparently even three former US presidents have Moon plots from him
Vicky Jeong is a space lawyer
Yes that is a real job
We showed her our lunar certificate
Oh you’ve even got a land registration form, this is proper
Wow
It looks very pretty and nice but doesn’t have any legal validity at all
This is because of an agreement signed in 1967 called the Outer Space Treaty
Meanwhile the foreign minister presided at the signing of the treaty...
...banning nuclear weapons from outer space
As well as trying to avoid an arms race...
...the treaty set out certain restrictions
It states that it should be for the benefit of all mankind
And it sets out important principles such as non-appropriation
So whether you put up a flag, whether you do anything, you build anything...
...you just don’t have property rights over the Moon
But the Outer Space Treaty only prohibits ownership of the Moon itself
The legality of who owns resources found on the Moon...
...like metals or water is left up to interpretation
So what if say...
...China and America both want to mine the same bit of the Moon?
To work out what could happen up here...
...we have to look down there
So the deep sea is really not a part of any country
It’s also very hard to get to and that’s like the Moon
So the Law of the Sea is the best model there is at the moment...
...for what a Moon agreement might be like
The Law of the Sea sets out which part of the deep ocean...
...belongs to specific countries...
...and which is shared by all humankind
For those areas it has strict criteria...
...for how private companies can mine for their own gain
This includes respecting the environment...
...and ensuring some of the proceeds go to help less-developed countries
But America has refused to ratify the Law of the Sea...
...believing as with the Moon in “finders keepers”
So even if there is a new Moon treaty...
...America is unlikely to sign up to it if it’s modelled on the Law of the Sea
There is definitely a need to create another international legal framework
Most countries recognise that
But it is very hard to reach consensus because a lot have their own interests
It will be a political mess
Just how much of a mess won’t be known until the first crater is mined...
...or the first hotel is built
And it may be many moons until the question of who owns the Moon...
...is finally resolved