President of the United States of America, Donald Trump has signed an Executive Order that empowers the United States to explore and mine the moon and other celestial bodies for natural resources.
The new executive order signed by Donald Trump negates the 1979 moon treaty that guarantees common ownership of the moon and space by all nations of the world.
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The executive order is titled “Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources,” and has reportedly been in the world for a year.
While reminding Americans that their country never signed the 1979 treaty, the executive order opined that:
“Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space.”
The executive document is seen as a boost to the Artemis Programme being carried out by NASA. The programme aims at colonising the moon begining with two astronauts by 2024.
NASA is expected to mine the moon under its Artemis programme using small payload designs.
According to a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory expert,
“Imagine a rover the size of your Roomba crawling the moon’s surface. Science payloads need to be similar in size to a new bar of soap to fit cleanly inside the rover—100 x 100 x 50 mm.”
The executive order also guarantees that the United States can remove chunks of the moon, Mars or any other celestial body, without global opposition from other countries.
The federal government, however, will “require partnership with Commercial entities to recover and use resources, including water and certain minerals, in outer space.”
The order concluded.