NASA takes steps toward building Moon Base, including discussing a “perimeter”
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Minor point but, naming a driving vehicle Pegasus? There’s got to be a better name for a rover than a flying horse. What about Lupa if you want Greek mythology, or something more JPL-esque like Trailblazer or Explorer?
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Do we know if these contracts are fixed point? What are the likelihood these companies make a rover for under $220 million?
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“Nasa announced on Tuesday ambitious plans for three uncrewed lunar missions this year to kickstart construction of a $20bn moon base, and said it had chosen the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, ahead of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to conduct the first.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/may/26/nasa-jeff-bezos-blue-origin?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/may/26/nasa-jeff-bezos-blue-origin?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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Establishing a perimeter would seem to be the first manifestation of USAn extraterrestrial imperialism.
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Not sure why you’d expect the Chinese to be respectful of this policy as they’ve spent the past decade building and fortifying artificial islands in the South China Sea as they attempt to assert control over international waters.
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Does the Outer Space Treaty allow you to control access to the interior spaces of your moon base? Or are we talking about a treaty that will instantly become obsolete the day someone sets up the first lunar habitat with a lock on the exterior door?
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I think the interior of a habitat becomes sovereign territory of the nation running it. But if another country decides to set up a mining operation ten meters from the front door then good luck. All the people back on Earth can do is formally complain and hope that other nation doesn't just laugh at them.
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Not to poo poo the US bad train, but setting up any kind of permanent base IE the stated goal of the Artemis Accords and China's own stated eventual ambition will perforce result in a perimeter.
You don't spend billions setting up a base to not stake out an area around it that you value. Don't want the international equivalent of meth heads rolling up and hooking into your power and water. (Note I'm not implying whomever else is on the moon are on drugs.) There are some things that are just finite resources and you need them kept safe for your eventual use.
The Chinese base or an imaginary Russian one, or a future Indian one, or EU one would almost certainly have similar requirements. Can't Bogart our stuff we need it.
It's all well and good to sign treaties about not claiming land or space off Earth when no one is remotely able to setup such facilities, but it was always doomed to die a quiet bureaucratic death when the realities of having such a base set in. Don't want your scarce moon water getting sucked up by a neighbor, don't want your limited sunlight areas being take over by someone else when you built a base right next to it.
Possession is 9/10ths of the law is a common saying for a reason, because it's historically been very true. The land your settled on is yours, hell we can look to American history as the truth of this. Even if the Natives were here first they were driven off and since no one else was around to claim it the land became the settler's that were there.
It's gross and it's ugly, but it's also reality, reality we're seeing repeated in the middle East right now.
Do I like that we can't all just get along and move into a StarTrek future where we acutally get along and aren't dicks to each other? No, but acting like this wasn't a super obvious inevitable outcome as soon as anyone started setting up a base is naive at best and maliciously ignorant at worst.
The US is just being honest about their/our intentions with the understanding that it should avoid conflicts if there are clearly marked areas each country can play in without pissing the others off.
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One of the main examples of possible harmful interference is the dust that's kicked up by landing or launching on the Moon using rocket engines. With no atmosphere to stop it, lunar dust spreads far and wide on ballistic trajectories, blasting everything on the surface and possibly reaching orbital velocities.
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The original Lunar Roving Vehicle was $300M (2026 dollars) for four vehicles and a few engineering models. So they should be able to do it.
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In the absence of functioning international law frameworks, sovereignty operates on the law of the jungle: land belongs to those with the biggest guns.
Too bad we seem to be living in a world where national leaders are ripping up international frameworks whenever they're inconvenient.
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I think the only place needing a perimeter on the moon is the Apollo 11 landing site. But nobody will pay a blind bit of notice to that, either.
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I guess if we're coming in with some horizontal velocity we need to cancel in order to land, and that happens to preferentialy spew the lunar dust onto your site, well sorry. That's just orbital mechanics....
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The "drones" mentioned in the article are presumably rocket powered (if they fly), and so will also present this problem. And if they are not to be one-and-done, then how will they be refueled?
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Because a moonbase is awesome. A great place from which to observe and study the Earth, and the Moon, and the rest of our solar system and deep space. A good place to support sending probes to Mars, the Asteroid Belt, and elsewhere in the solar system, and perhaps even building them from local materials (not needed to be launched from Earth), and perhaps fueling them whether by solar retransmitted to vehicles, or by deuterium and tritium accumulated on the Far Side. It's a place to build a giant version of a space station that can be sustained far longer and with far more room and more local materials. It can support Mars missions (crewed or not), or other bases orbiting the Earth, the Moon or the Sun.
All that science, all that tech development. And most importantly, sending humans into space to do real exploration and development, making humanity a spacefaring species. Inspiring a world of people world to do more even as AI and robots might discourage us.
All of which is why America's greatest rivals (and enemies among them) are all racing to do what we can do more easily with our momentum and infrastructure. Doing it ahead of them, either beating those who won't work with us or leading those who will, shows that the "American Way" succeeds, leads and inspires. The promotional value is not just empty propaganda, that kind of soft power supported the USA's winning the Cold War and leading much of the world since then.
Did I mention it's awesome?
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Why aren't we building a moonbase safely underground? Away from the radiation, meteorites and other dangers on the exposed surface.
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Or they could stick with the flying theme and just name it "Icarus". That's Greek, and I'm sure it will be great.
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Yea! Just use a Starship 3 and dump a metric ton of Optimus and maybe a few cybercabs!
That should do.
They have cameras, all you need!
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Tritium has such a short life life that it cannot really meaningfully accumulate anywhere, and it's decay product (helium-3) only exists in trace amounts anywhere in the universe let alone the Moon. Deuterium also isn't exactly abundant on the Lunar surface or in the trace amounts of deposited volatiles.
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So, how many fools out there believe this is all going to happen, if ever, even remotely on schedule and close to cost?
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That's not the point though, is it? We only need to believe it can happen until Jan 20th, 2029, then it can all be quietly dropped.
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Clever. Is there a better way to get NASA funding then to convince Trump that NASA is going to use that money to annex territory somewhere?
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Kelly and Zack Wienersmith's book A City on Mars is relevant here: they cover whether and how to settle the Moon, Mars, or anywhere else in the solar system.
That includes a discussion of the Outer Space Treaty, and of the best (or least bad) locations on the Moon. The Outer Space Treaty was modeled on the Antarctic Treaty System, which works partly because nobody has a significant incentive not to follow it.
(Like many of their readers, the Wienersmiths were disappointed by their conclusion, which was basically that building a permanent settlement in space would be a good idea a few centuries from now, and a bad idea now or in the near future.)
That includes a discussion of the Outer Space Treaty, and of the best (or least bad) locations on the Moon. The Outer Space Treaty was modeled on the Antarctic Treaty System, which works partly because nobody has a significant incentive not to follow it.
(Like many of their readers, the Wienersmiths were disappointed by their conclusion, which was basically that building a permanent settlement in space would be a good idea a few centuries from now, and a bad idea now or in the near future.)
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Trying to reconcile using drones to map the surface down to 1 cm resolution while looking thru the dust cloud the drone thrusters will create.....
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Statistical
Ars Legatus Legionis
To be blunt it doesn't really matter if you trust it if you have no means to get to the moon. China arguably would want the same kind of safety zones around their lunar activities so both sides have an interest in reciprocity here. For everyone else well if you can't reach the moon it doesn't really matter if you trust or don't trust it right?
Those that can make the rules. The alternative would be a ground of landlocked nations deciding how maritime law is going to work.
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Statistical
Ars Legatus Legionis
It isn't going to be dropped. A lunar landing will happen in the next President's term and potentially two or three lunar landings. If that person wins re-election they will be around to seeing first surface habitat landed on the moon as well.
So yeah the timelines are nonsense but nobody is going to axe it on the 1 yard line.
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Any Government hold a base higher in the gravity well will have an inherent advantage over every other government on Earth. Didn't any of you read Heinlein?
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spamthejabroni
Ars Centurion
Alternate headline - NASA has been watching "For all mankind" again and see a big ass revenue stream with a blueprint already in place.
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