Artemis Accord - Everyone's going to the Moon, But Who Owns It
NASA has formally announced a series of new principles and processes known as the Artemis accords. These sets of principles have been set up so that America and other countries can agree to a common principle regarding the exploration of the Moon and the utilization of its resources. The main question is what are these accords, and what is the need to have a formulated set of principles?
In the recent years, various nations have expressed their interest to explore the Moon. This is the biggest reason why the Artemis Accord is required. In the early 1960s, only two countries were trying to reach the Moon - the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US). However, flash forward to half a century later, we live in a world where instead of only two nations, dozens of nations and national space agencies are planning to touch the Moon.
Along with this, several billionaires are planning to have their self-funded plans independent of any nation. It have become extremely complicated and challenging to have a peaceful exploration of space.
What are the attributes included in Artemis Accords?
NASA has introduced the Artemis accords with the intention of boosting international cooperation in terms of space exploration, while also helping the nations to enhance their relationship. There are certainly visible and most important aspects that will help create a peaceful environment between different nations. These include;
- Transparency
One of the most important principle for successful space exploration is transparency. According to the Artemis Accords, all partner nations must uphold the principle of openness by publicly describing every policy and plans created by them. Transparency involves the details and information regarding the activities that are taking place on the Moon.
According to the Associate Administrator of NASA for International and Interagency Relations, although the countries are expected to sign this Accord with NASA, individual companies do not need to do it. However, the outer space treaty makes it mandatory for respective companies to operate under the treaty as a part of the host nation's participation in the Artemis Accords. Ultimately, everyone needs to be open and transparent about what they are doing on the Moon.
- Interoperability
It is important to have interoperability of various systems to ensure that every nation has safe and robust space exploration. As a result, the Artemis Accord calls for all of its partner nations to utilize the international standard, while also developing new standards when necessary to support interoperability wherever practical.
- Emergency Assistance
The emergency assistance principle is an essential aspect of the Artemis Accord. According to this, every nation needs to commit itself to the agreement on the rescue and return of all astronauts and the return of objects launched in outer space during any exploration.
In addition to this, NASA and its partner nations also need to take reasonable steps to provide all kinds of assistance to astronauts in any distress.
- Registration of Space objects
According to the Artemis Accords, registration is one of the most critical steps in creating a successful, safe, and sustainable environment in outer space to conduct private and public activities.
Under this Accord, every nation needs to register itself since it becomes difficult to avoid harmful interference without proper registration.
- Release of all Scientific Data
Time and again, NASA has asked its partner nations to commit themselves to the complete sharing of scientific data. Under the Artemis Accords, all the partners need to follow the NASA example and release the scientific data publicly. It is to ensure that the entire world can benefit from the journey of outer space exploration and discovery.
- Protection of Heritage
Protection of all historical sites and artefacts is another important aspect of the Artemis Accord agreement. NASA has made it clear that the safety of all artefacts in space is equally important as it is on earth.
Thus, under the Artemis Accords agreement, all the partner nations need to commit themselves to protect various artefacts and sites of historical value.
- The utilization of space resources
Extraction and correct utilization of all the resources collected from the Moon, Mars, and other asteroids is critical to support a sustainable and safe exploration and development of space.
According to the Artemis Accords, every partner nation needs to conduct its space resource extraction under specific guidelines in accordance with the outer space treaty.
- Deconfliction of different activities
To avoid any harmful interference, all activities' deconfliction is an essential principle under the Artemis Accords. Under this principle, all the partner nations and NASA need to provide public information regarding the various locations and general nature of the operations to help create a safe zone.
It is also necessary to provide regular notification and updates so that all the partner nations can co-ordinate and respect the safety zones, which will prevent any harmful interference.
