The current US administration’s plans were to send astronauts to Mars. That’s now been dropped, and the emphasis will now be to compete with China and try to build a base before them. Who starts a lunar base first matters. Although the Outer Space Treaty prohibits anyone from claiming lunar territory, whoever sets up a base can claim some sort of rights to the site and its vicinity.
The best site will be somewhere on the south pole (this means almost continuous sunlight) with access to frozen water at the bottom of craters. It’s possible that extensive lava tubes for radiation protection will be important, too. China’s plans envision its base being built inside these. The number of places with easy access to water and lots of lava tubes may be very small, and some much better than others. Presumably whoever gets there first will get the best spot.
Who will get there first? It remains to be seen. The US’s weakness is that it is relying on SpaceX’s Starship to first achieve a huge number of technical goals, and so far, SpaceX is far behind schedule on those.
I think what the Outer Space Treaty and its contemporary interpretation says is this:
Right, I’m pretty sure the outer space treaty is based on the Antarctica Treaty, and countries can still establish research facilities down there. This feels similar
The thing is that contemporary interpretations of the outer space treaty differ significantly from what’s actually written in the text. In the text, it just says that “no nation can claim a celestial body for itself”.
This contains not only one, but two fallacies:
both are wrong. and that’s why we have contemporary interpreters today saying that the paper is total bullshit and should be completely overhauled/rewritten.
How cute you guys think international law still matters to the US.
As if the US abides by any of its own agreements. Also there is no way in this current timeline that the US gets anywhere near a moon base before China does.