▲ Vision on mineral extraction on an asteroid, from ExplainingTheFuture.com [Christopher Barnatt].

GLOBAL AFFAIRS JOURNAL / Mario Pereira

[14-page document. download in PDF]

INTRODUCTION

The American astrophysicist Michio Kaku recalls that when President Thomas Jefferson bought Louisiana from Napoleon (in 1803) for the astronomical sum of 15 million dollars, he spent a long time in deep fear. The reason for this lay in the fact that he did not know for a long time whether the referenced territory (mostly unexplored) hid fabulous riches or, on the contrary, was a wasteland of no great value... The passage of time has more than proved the former, just as it proved that it was then that the march of the American pioneers began: those people who - just like the "Adelantados" of Castile and Extremadura in the 16th century - set out for the unknown in order to obtain fortune, discover new wonders and improve their social position.

Today's Jeffersons are the Musks and Bezos, American businessmen, owners of huge financial, commercial and technological emporiums, who, hand in hand with new "pioneers" (a mix between Jules Verne/Arthur C. Clark and Neil Armstrong/John Glenn) seek to reach the new frontier of Humanity: the commercial and mining exploitation of Outer Space.

Faced with such a challenge, there are many questions that we can (and should) ask ourselves. Here we will try to answer (at least briefly) whether the existing international and national rules and regulations concerning the mining of the Moon and celestial bodies constitute - or not - a sufficient framework for the regulation of such projected activities.

▲ lunar base proposal for obtaining helium, taken from ExplainingTheFuture.com [Christopher Barnatt].

GLOBAL AFFAIRS JOURNAL / Emili J. Blasco

[8-page document. download in PDF]

INTRODUCTION

The economic interest in space resources, or at least the reasonable expectation about the profitability of obtaining them, explains to a large extent the growing involvement of private investment in space travel.

In addition to the commercially strong artificial satellite industry, as well as the scientific and defense industries, where the state sector continues to play a leading role, the possibility of exploiting high-value raw materials present on celestial bodies, such as entrance asteroids closest to Earth and the Moon, has awakened a kind of gold rush that is fueling the new degree program in space.

The epic of the new space barons -Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos- has monopolized the public narrative, but alongside them there are other New Space Players, with varied profiles. Behind all of them there is a growing group of capitalist partners and restless investors willing to risk assets in the expectation of profits.

To speak of a fever is certainly exaggerated because the real economic benefit that can be achieved from space mining - obtaining platinum, for example, or lunar helium - has yet to be demonstrated, because although the technology is becoming cheaper, which financially allows us to take new steps in outer space, bringing tons of materials to Earth has a cost that in most cases detracts from the monetary sense of the operation.

It would be enough, however, that in certain situations it would be profitable for the issue space missions to increase, and it is assumed that this traffic in itself would generate the need for an infrastructure abroad, at least with stations where to refuel fuel - so expensive to lift to the firmament - manufactured from raw subject found in space (the water of the lunar poles could be transformed into propellant). It is this expectation, with a certain basis of reasonableness, which feeds the investments that are being made.

In turn, the increased space activity and the skill to obtain the sought-after resources project beyond our planet the geopolitical concepts developed for the Earth. The location of countries (there are particularly suitable locations for space launches) and the control of certain routes (the succession of the most convenient orbits for flights) are part of the new astropolitics.

▲ In addition to Moon return and Mars landings, asteroid travel programs also accelerate [NASA].

GLOBAL AFFAIRS JOURNAL / Javier Gómez-Elvira

[8-page document. download in PDF]

INTRODUCTION

Since time immemorial, human beings have imagined themselves outside the Earth, exploring other worlds. One of the first stories dates back to the second century A.D. Lucian of Samosata wrote a book in which his characters reached the Moon thanks to the impulse of a whirlwind and there they developed their adventures. Since then, numerous science fiction novels or stories can be found that take place on the Moon, Mars, other bodies of our Solar System or even beyond. Somehow all of them lost a bit of their fiction in the middle of the last century, with the first steps of an astronaut on our satellite. Unfortunately, what seemed to be the beginning of a new era did not go beyond 5 missions in 2 years.

The first stage began when President Kennedy uttered his famous phrase: "We choose to go to the Moon.... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too". Although perhaps the end was written in the beginning: the only goal was to demonstrate that the US was the technological leader over the USSR, and when this was achieved the project was stopped.

▲ Scene about anchoring on an asteroid to develop mining activity, from ExplainingTheFuture.com [Christopher Barnatt].

GLOBAL AFFAIRS JOURNAL / Emili J. Blasco

[8-page document. download in PDF]

INTRODUCTION

The new space degree program is based on more solid and lasting foundations -especially economic interests- than the first one, which was based on ideological skill and international prestige. In the new Cold War there are also space developments that obey the strategic struggle of the great powers, as occurred between the 1950s and 1970s, but today the exploration and defense aspects are joined by commercial interests: companies are taking over in many aspects from the protagonism of the States.

However debatable it may be to speak of a new space age, given that since the emblematic launch of Sputnik in 1957, there has been no end to programmed activity in different regions of space, including human presence (although manned trips to the Moon have ended, there have been trips and stays in the Earth's leave ), the truth is that we have entered a new phase.

Hollywood, which so well reflects the social reality and generational aspirations of each time, serves as a mirror. After a time without special space-related productions, since 2013 the genre is experiencing a resurgence, with new nuances. Films such as Gravity, Interstellar and Mars illustrate the moment of takeoff of a renewed ambition that, after the short horizon of the shuttle program - recognized as a mistake by NASA, as it focused on the Earth's orbit leave -, connects with the logical sequence of the perspectives opened by the arrival of man on the Moon: lunar instructions , manned trips to Mars and space colonization.

At the level of the collective imagination, the new space age starts from the square where the previous one "ended", that day in December 1972 when Gene Cernan, Apollo 17 astronaut, left the Moon. Somehow, in all this time there has been "the sadness of thinking that in 1973 we had reached the peak of our evolution as a species" and that later it stopped: "while we were growing up we were promised rocket backpacks, and in exchange we got Instagram", states the graphic commentary of one of the co-writers of Interstellar.

Something similar is what George W. Bush had expressed when in 2004 he commissioned NASA to start preparing for man's return to the Moon: "In the last thirty years, no human being has set foot on another world or ventured into space beyond 386 miles [621 kilometers in altitude], roughly the distance from Washington, DC, to Boston, Massachusetts".

The year 2004 could be considered the beginning of the new space age, not only because manned trips to the Moon and Mars have been back in NASA's sights since then, but also because it was the first milestone in private space exploration with the experimental flight of SpaceShipOne: it was the first access of a private pilot to orbital space, something that until then had been considered the exclusive domain of the government.

The American priority then went from the Moon to some of the asteroids and then to Mars, to return to the trip to our satellite to occupy the first place in the space diary . Returning to the Moon, the idea of a "return" to space exploration takes on a special significance.

The risk of military use of the facility, fueled by confidentiality clauses, fuels discussion in Argentina and suspicions in Washington.

China's arrival on the far side of the Moon has highlighted Chinese space advances. For this new degree program, Beijing has a tracking and observation station in Patagonia, the first of its own territory. In Argentina there has been extensive discussion about possible unacknowledged purposes of these facilities and alleged secret clauses negotiated at the time by the Kirchner Administration. The government of Mauricio Macri guarantees the peaceful uses of the station, but the controversy has not ceased.

▲ Chinese space station in the Argentine province of Neuquén [Casa Rosada].

article / Naomi Moreno Cosgrove

After years of gradual economic penetration, which has led it to become the leading trading partner of several South American countries and a major lender and investor throughout the region, China's incursion into Latin America is no longer silent. The influence achieved in several nations - for example, it acquires almost 90% of the oil exported by Ecuador and its credits have been essential for the subsistence of Venezuela or certain Brazilian public companies - means that China's activities are attracting special attention and its expansion is becoming increasingly clear.

China's growing power in Latin America is especially observed by the United States, although its own neglect of the region, sometimes presented as a consequence of its shift towards Asia, has contributed to national governments seeking other reference letter partners to meet its needs reference letter

Already suspicious of this growing Chinese presence in the American continent, any activity in strategic fields, such as security, arouses particular suspicion in Washington. This has also been the case with moves made by Moscow, such as the siting of a station for the Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (Globalnaya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema or GLONASS) in Managua (Nicaragua). The secrecy surrounding the operation of the facilities has caused mistrust among the population itself, raising suspicions as to whether their use is really intended only to provide a higher quality of the Russian navigation system or whether there is the possibility of strategic exploitation by the Russian aerospace defense forces.

Negotiation

Suspicions about the so-called Far Space Station, the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) station in Patagonia, in the province of Neuquén, stem from entrance fact that it was negotiated at a time of particular disadvantage for Argentina, due to the financial weakness of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's government and its need for urgent credits. When Argentina was out of the international credit markets for having defaulted on the payment of close to 100 billion dollars in bonds, the Asian country was a blessing for the then president.

In 2009, in the midst of the financial crisis, China sent representatives to the Latin American country to discuss an issue that had little to do with currency fluctuations: Beijing's space interests. This was due to China's desire to have a center in the other hemisphere of the globe that could support its space activity, such as the expedition to the far side of the Moon.

After months of negotiation under great discretion, the Chinese government and the government of the province of Neuquén signed an agreement in November 2012, whereby China obtained the right to use the land - rent-free - for fifty years. The technical agreement was signed by China's state-owned satellite safety and control business (CLTC) and Argentina's National Commission for Space Activities (CONAE).

Enormous in size, the larger of the two circular antennas - it is twelve stories high, weighs 450 tons and has a large diameter - and visible from a great distance due to its location in the middle of a desert plain, the station soon became an ideal target for controversy and suspicion. The fear that, in addition to the declared civilian use, it might also have a military use and be used to gather information by intercepting communications in that part of South America, fueled the controversy.

After becoming Argentine president in 2015, Mauricio Macri entrusted then Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra and the Argentine ambassador in Beijing, Diego Guelar, with the task of negotiating that the agreement should include the specification that the station would only be used for peaceful purposes, something the Chinese accepted.

In spite of everything, the discussion about the risks and benefits of the Chinese base is still alive in the Argentine public opinion. Politicians of the civil service examination in Neuquén consider that "it is shameful to renounce sovereignty in your own country", as Congresswoman Betty Kreitman said when provincial legislators learned about the project.

Beyond Argentina's borders, White House officials have called the project a "Trojan Horse," reflecting U.S. concern about the initiative, according to sources quoted by The New York Times. Even apart from any strategic dispute with the United States, some Latin American leaders have doubts and regrets about the ties established with China, as they are concerned that previous governments have subjected their countries to excessive dependence on the Asian power.

Confidentiality

The main questioning of the Chinese base, then, has to do with its eventual military use and with the possible existence of secret clauses. The latter have been the main cause of international suspicion, since Macri himself came to validate the existence of these clauses, when they became a weapon against the Kirchner government, and promised to reveal them when he became president, something he has not done. However, the Argentine space authorities themselves deny any secret section .

Perhaps the misunderstanding can be found in the fact that the contract signed between the Chinese CLTC and the Argentine CONAE states that "both parties will maintain confidentiality regarding technology, activities and monitoring programs, control and dataacquisition". Although confidentiality with respect to third parties in relation to technology is a common internship , in this case it contributes to public distrust.

Given that the CLTC depends on the Chinese People's Army, it is difficult to deny that the data it obtains will pass into the domain of the Defense hierarchy and end up having a military use, although not necessarily ordered to a warlike action. Experts also say that antennas and other equipment used in support of space missions, similar to those the Chinese have in Patagonia, are likely to increase China's information-gathering capabilities. "A giant antenna is like a huge vacuum cleaner. It sucks up signals, information, all subject of things," Dean Cheng, an expert on China's national security policy, was quoted as saying in the NYT.