Back to the Moon, with a new tune

AFTER the launch of Artemis II last week, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told mediapersons, “After a brief 54-year intermission, NASA is back in the business of sending astronauts to the Moon.”

The Artemis II crew successfully looped around the Moon on April 6, marking a historic milestone in human spaceflight. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, passed behind the far side of the Moon. During this dramatic flyby, the crew captured striking photographs and made live observations of the lunar surface from distances no humans had reached in more than five decades.

The journey has been remarkably smooth so far. Orion, the spacecraft carrying humans into deep space, performed flawlessly despite minor early glitches with the toilet and communication systems.

The astronauts have now begun their return journey to Earth. They are expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on April 10. With this loop around the Moon, the four astronauts have set a new record as the farthest humans have ever travelled from Earth.

Artemis II will be followed by a crewed Moon landing mission targeted for 2028. Over the next decade, NASA dreams of gradually building a permanent outpost, ‘Artemis Base Camp’, on the lunar surface, using more than 40-50 robotic and cargo landers and around 6-10 crewed landings between 2028 and 2036. The base will eventually include living habitats for four astronauts on four-week missions, advanced power systems, multiple rovers, and the first elements of an “industrial neighbourhood” for on-site manufacturing. For the first time, it will also allow the return of hundreds of kilograms of lunar samples, hardware and materials to Earth.

Why is NASA going back to the Moon when we have already been there? When Apollo 8 first sent humans towards the Moon in December 1968, America was a deeply divided nation, torn apart by the unpopular Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy, and waves of protests across cities and campuses. In those dark times, beating the Soviet Union to the Moon offered a powerful symbol of national pride and geopolitical victory. Apollo became a rare moment of unity for a troubled country.

As Karl Marx famously observed, history repeats itself, “first as tragedy, second as farce.” Astronauts are now heading to the Moon amid a US-led unpopular war (in West Asia) and domestic divisions in America. The optics are not working this time. So far, Artemis II has failed to generate the global excitement that Apollo had done.

This time, the main driving force is not Cold War rivalry but growing competition with China, which is rapidly advancing its own lunar programme, and the US is determined to maintain its leadership in space.

Yet the parallels end there. Unlike Apollo’s bold, exploratory spirit, famously captured in Neil Armstrong’s words, “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”, Artemis is increasingly shaped by strong commercial interests. Private corporations such as SpaceX and Blue Origin view the programme as the foundation for a future lunar economy built around resource mining and industrial activity.

For many private investors, NASA’s Artemis programme is far more than a government exploration project. It is being seen as crucial seed capital for an emerging lunar economy.

With a long-term NASA commitment in place, rather than chasing quick profits, investors see the Moon base as a long-term platform for investment and profit. By dramatically expanding the Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme and committing to dozens of landings over the next decade, NASA is creating the demand for aerospace infrastructure. This provides the right ecosystem for private companies to make large investments in lunar technology.

Water ice at the lunar south pole could one day be turned into rocket fuel and oxygen. The lunar soil could be processed into building materials or solar cells. The planned ‘industrial neighbourhood’ in the final phase is expected to test on-site manufacturing and return capabilities for lunar production.

In effect, government funding is de-risking the Moon for commerce. As industry observers point out, Artemis is laying the tracks for a viable and self-sustaining cislunar economy, from propellant depots and habitats to mining operations.

While aerospace corporations are optimistic, scholars and space lawyers are sounding a note of caution. They increasingly compare the commercial rush towards the Moon to America’s 19th-century Wild West expansion, a scramble for resources with weak rules, powerful players and uncertain outcomes for those who arrive late.

At the heart of the debate lies the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which declares the Moon the “province of all mankind” and strictly bans national appropriation. The 1979 Moon Agreement takes a step further, designating lunar resources as the “common heritage of mankind” and demanding equitable sharing among all nations. But, predictably, major space powers, including the US, Russia and China, never ratified it.

Instead, the US has pushed forward with domestic laws such as the 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act and the Artemis Accords, now signed by more than 50 nations, including India. These allow private companies to own extracted resources. The US claims that this principle does not violate the non-appropriation doctrine of the Outer Space Treaty. Critics, however, warn that “safety zones” around bases could gradually become de facto territorial claims.

Scholars warn that these developments could marginalise Global South nations. The lack of clear rules on jurisdiction, criminal law and labour rights in isolated lunar settlements, and the potential for environmental damage from large-scale mining could generate a ‘Wild West’ situation. Many pundits fear that without stronger multilateral governance, the Moon could become another arena of unequal enclosure rather than a shared human heritage — and yet another site of global conflict.