The Moon's Going To Get Crowded - We Should Protect Our Heritage On It While We Still Can

In 1959, the Luna 2 probe from the Soviet Union became the very first human-made object to reach our closest celestial neighbor. In the decades since, we have been leaving footprints - both literally and figuratively - all over the Moon. Today, there are over 100 metric tons of human-made material resting on the Moon’s surface - everything from advanced cameras and sensors to literal human waste. But that’s nothing compared to what’s to come. NASA predicts the next decade will see over 100 new lunar missions, equaling or exceeding all the missions previously flown. Which brings up a pressing question about all the stuff that’s already there - how do we protect that history? A new paper by Teasel Muir-Harmony, the Curator of the Space History Department of the Smithsonian and Todd Mosher, a Scholar in Residence at University of Colorado, Boulder, reports on a Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Summit on Outer Space Heritage that dives into the legal, scientific, and engineering hurdles of preserving these historic sites.

On Earth, protecting historical buildings is a relatively straightforward process - at least in developed countries. There are zoning laws and heritage registries - things that maintain the history but frustrate new developers. In space, things are much more complicated. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty dictates that nations retain jurisdiction over the hardware they send into space. It also requires countries to avoid “harmful interference” with other states’ activities. However, as the paper points out, that doesn’t stop a country from visiting an old site to retrieve material, or disrupt a culturally significant lunar landscape.

More recently, the Artemis Accords introduced principles specifically intended to preserve historically significant landing sites and artifacts. But the Accords are a non-binding multilateral agreement with no enforcement mechanism. And crucially, major spacefaring nations like China and Russia haven’t signed them, meaning they have no legal obligation to abide by them. In other words, the Accords, which were originally drawn up by America, which arguably has the most heritage to lose on the Moon, suffer from a distinct lack of global consensus.

Video series of the Summit on Outer Space Heritage. Credit - AIAA YouTube Channel

Even the United States itself has sometimes treated its old lunar landing sites as potential technological opportunities rather than museum exhibits. During the Apollo 12 mission in 1969, and back before there was really an understanding of what “lunar heritage” might mean, astronauts landed 600 feet from the robotic Surveyor 3 lander. They walked over, snipped off the lander’s TV camera and a few other components, and brought them back to Earth. To them, this had the great benefit of returning to a previous landing site for further study. And the engineering data gleaned from that "extraterrestrial archaeology” was invaluable - they got to see how paint cracked and the damage done by the blast cone of the descending crewed lander.

There are plenty more sites that modern day engineers and scientists (especially astrobiologists) would love to visit - including the Apollo sites themselves. Seeing how human waste has held up in full radiation for 60 years would certainly be interesting, but perhaps not as interesting as seeing how discernible the famous footprints on the regolith are. There was even a DARPA program called LunA-10 that looked at intentionally using repurposed materials from retired spacecraft on the lunar surface to enable future lunar infrastructure, though as Dr. Mosher pointed out in an interview with UT, it is much more effective to intentionally design future missions for reuse rather than attempting to salvage parts from historical missions that were never intended for that purpose.

*The famous photograph of Buzz Aldrin's footprint in the lunar regolith. Credit - NASA*

Upcoming missions are going to concentrate on a different part of the Moon’s surface from the equator where the Apollo missions landed, though. The South Pole, where the majority of the available water ice on the Moon is located, is the target of about at least half of NASA’s upcoming Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) missions. But its geography is tricky, with narrow corridors to transit throughout, and relatively limited space for both access to water and critical sunlight. Making sure all the countries involved in the exploration of this critical region understand and value the impact they’re making on what could be considered critical historical sites in the future is extremely important.

Balancing those competing interests is difficult, especially without an internationally recognized framework from which to do so. In some cultures, any damage to the Moon at all is sacrilegious, and they strongly oppose any sustained presence there. But those religious desires must be balanced with the potential of the Moon as a base of operations for our expansion into the solar system. And the raw materials that we find there will be critical in enabling that expansion.

Despite efforts by the World Monuments Fund to name the Moon as an endangered site, or utilize UNESCO’s World Heritage Site status to protect some of the various historical sites, no existing framework for protection seems to have stuck. But the authors are optimistic - in an interview with UT they mentioned many people they discuss this problem with are at least open to talking about it. And they point out that tourism is one of the biggest potential near-term money makers for the New Space industry. What better places to visit than the Apollo sites where we originally set foot on our nearest neighbor.

Panel on the History and Preservation of the lunar hertiage from the Summit. Credit - AIAA YouTube Channel

They are continuing their efforts to bring awareness of this tension between future exploration goals and preserving the history of what we’ve already accomplished for future generations. While there isn’t any working group at any international agency that is currently focused on this topic, continued discussions at conferences and panels keep a light burning for what could one day be some of the most fascinating and uniquely historic sites in all of human history.

Learn More:

T. Muir-Harmony & T. Mosher - Multiple aspects of preserving lunar space heritage

UT - We've Entered a New Era: The Lunar Anthropocene

UT - Nobody Owns the Moon...And That's Going to be a Problem

UT - NASA Proposes the Artemis Accords. The New Rules for Lunar Exploration