Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

by Tim Marshall

The Artemis Accords are an example of the legal, political and military difficulties space exploration is facing. When it comes to Artemis, Moscow and Beijing are particularly concerned about the articles allowing the signatories to establish ‘safety zones’ on the Moon to protect the area in which a country is working. Nations are asked to ‘respect’ the zones in order to ‘prevent harmful interference’. This throws up the scenario of a Russian spaceship landing within a zone, setting up shop next door to a Japanese or American base, and the new arrivals getting their drills out. By what law could the Japanese or Americans object, and in the absence of law, what would they do about it? They could hardly turn to the now horribly outdated 1967 document popularly known as the Outer Space Treaty upon which most of the rules governing the use of space are based. It says: ‘Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.’ A safety zone looks an awful lot like national appropriation, and the more zones there are and they bigger they are, the more crowded will be the Moon – especially with private companies increasing competition for its resources.