From 1969 to 1972, twelve Americans walked on its dusty ground. Then, in the 21st century, the race for the Moon started again, exposes this documentary. China, which overtook Russia to take third place among space powers, behind the United States and Europe, in 2019 placed a robotic vehicle on the hidden side of our satellite, a first. By 2036, she wants to send astronauts there. Europe, for its part, works as well with the United States as with China. His agency, the ESA (European Space Agency), proposed in 2015 a project for fixed installations on the Moon. As astronaut Samantha Cristo-foretti explains, it will be less difficult to work there than in the International Space Station (ISS) because of its gravity (one-sixth of Earth’s gravity).
A risk of privatization of space
The Moon could thus become a relay to Mars and beyond: taking off will require 40 times less energy than on Earth. Provided you find fuel there: the water present in the form of ice could provide the necessary hydrogen. Tantalizing prospects for space-loving billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Their competition, in the meantime, is played out in the launch of satellites, a very concrete business that they have revolutionized. SpaceX, Musk’s company, has been tasked by NASA with the trips for the Space Station.
Laws in the United States and Luxembourg authorize the exploitation of space resources such as asteroid minerals: a prospect that is still very distant, but these texts show a risk of privatization of space, rendering the 1967 treaty obsolete – signed by all countries – which prohibits the appropriation of celestial bodies. The International Space Station has brought together the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada, but its existence will end in a few years. Will the Moon, coveted by States and private entrepreneurs, in turn become a place of collaboration, on the model of Antarctica, or will it be a reflection of terrestrial rivalries?
Tuesday January 17 at 8:30 p.m. on LCP. French documentary by Véronique Préault (2018). 52 mins. (Available in replay on the site of LCP).
