"We're not planting our flag and leaving. We’re going to stay, learn, and then go to Mars. There’s critical real estate on the Moon. We want to claim that real estate for ourselves and our partners, which is going to be critical to being successful in that mission."
Sean Duffy interviewed this morning on NASA+.
The Outer Space Treaty, which 117 countries, including the US, are signatories to, prohibits Earth nations from claiming lunar territory. The trouble with saying you can break any international law you want, by say, invading Greenland, or claiming the Moon, is that then anyone else can. By say, invading Taiwan, or claiming the Moon, also.
What do you do then, especially when they (China) get all the good bits of the lunar South pole first? Chinese plans for their International Lunar Research Station are far more advanced than anything NASA has. There's every likelihood they'll be the ones able to claim the best lunar real estate first.
The new NASA head, Sean Duffy, says the US wants to "claim territory" on the Moon.
byu/lughnasadh inFuturology
28 Comments
Moon War I will only be upstaged by Moon War II. We keep going in this direction and we’ll ruin that world too, and the next and the next.
what happens when they each claim territory and build bases and what not but then something happens terrestrially where the claimees dissolve in a political sense, then we lose contact and evolve separately for a couple billions years until we make contact again and this is what is happening
With what budget?
Try claiming the US Air Traffic Controller crises, and owning it, before branching out to a piece of pie in the sky.
That’s an interesting claim considering NASA’s funding was just slashed by 25%.
Got to get a piece before China takes the entire cake ! Does nasa even remember how to get back to the moon, their budget has no problem getting there!
Moon property is like watching Earth rotate from the nose bleeds. Besides who thought that actually having a major presence on the moon was a good starting point for templating extra planetary travel, terraforming, building atmospheric generators.. And fam. dam. Zero gravity accelerator launches. May the govt of USA be less concerned with the moon and more concerned about inflating prices with tarrifing imports to US consumers. NASA, any attention will likely be less profitable than the NASA shuttles, no one needs your eggberts on the moon–Mars on the other hand. Bundle up, it’s a bit chilly.
Millions of homeless people, wages are pitifully low, most Americans can’t afford healthcare, but sure! Let’s colonize the fucking Moon 🙃
I hear Greenland just let out a big sigh of relief.
Someone tell that MTV Road Rules moron I said STFU please.
Trump has found a deep, deep pool of morons to staff his cabinet.
What if it’s not an earth nation? Us sends a ton of stuff up and people there, they set up shop and then those people “defect” to establish their own moon nation. The mooninites.
Everything is short term thinking here. Whether its actually the case that someone has sold Trump on the idea of claiming territories on the Moon or its just another distraction from Trump’s Epstein connection, I am very doubtful there are any serious plans to prioritize doing any of this. Even if the intent is genuine, whatever plan they come up with will probably be too half-baked to survive to fruition.
That would be logistically difficult, but the moon might be the only place countries can stake a claim. Governing outside of earth and orbiting bodies has layers of complexity so high, it’s unfeasible.
> Chinese plans
May or may not actually be that advanced. This is the problem with authoritarian states: they lie.
These idiots can’t get out of their own way. At this rate the US will never return to the moon.
Glory-seeking behaviour. They want the fame of “first human colony on moon” and “first humans on mars”. They either cannot comprehend that such things are undertakings requiring several presidential terms worth of time or know it, they are just hanging out the the require glory-terms to wow the MAGA voterbase. Rethread the moonbase nostalgia, do none of the work required to repeat it.
This is why there is so much talk and perhaps plans, but nobody is in a race to put a man on Mars. It is a long-term project that would pay off in propaganda terms many years later and even then risky. What if the first human mars mission ends in disaster? What if the rocket fails? It is safer to float around moon race nostalgia.
This guy talks about “crucial real estate”, okay, what is valuable on the moon that makes it so crucial? What is possible to do on the moon that cannot be done in Earth orbit? I am sure that there are scientific opportunities to seek out, but I sincerely doubt that a guy with a marketing degree cares about that. At most, I am sure that he envisions a NASA base there to serve millionaire/billionaire tourists while there is interest. Which would line up with the administration being composed of grifters.
Whatever, the US doesn’t have the organizational cohesion to offer basic support to its people right now. I’m not worried about them putting together mega projects.
Trump’s america unfortunately is a bit of lemon. A pedophile lemon.
Speaking for the rest of the world, we’re cool with it. Please move all Americans to the moon asap.
You can only claim territory that you are able to defend.
All for the US to satisfy their expansionist thirst by claiming territory on the moon over threats to take it from Greenland or Canada.
It’s hard not to joke about this. In all seriousness, what do you think will happen first?
A) NASA or the Trump Admin start a gofundme for this
B) Sean Duffy onlyfans account for moon funds
It’s like claiming part of the local parks sand box is yours.
As an American, words cannot describe the humiliation that I and every same citizen feels over this absolute farce of an administration.
We don’t have to break any international law. All we have to do is withdraw from the treaty, the same as Norway withdrew from the treaty against mines.
Is this idiotic administration trying to start World War III? I hate this timeline
humans
we could pool our resources…do it together and already be on mars.
Instead we would rather fight over the gas and oil in Europe or see how many holes we can dig in Gaza.
The suicidal ridiculousness of it is that we are going to fight China, to secure rare earth resources…so we can fight China. We’re just blowing shit up, to make more bombs so we can blow more shit up
Dang, this almost distracted me from the fact the trump administration is still covering up the epstein files.