WASHINGTON — Nearly six decades after world powers agreed that no nation could claim the moon, a new race to settle its surface is testing whether that promise still holds.

The United States and China are each pushing to build permanent bases near the lunar south pole. Private companies backed by some of the world's richest people are building the rockets and landers to get there. And the legal question at the center of it all, who can own what on the moon, remains unsettled.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, negotiated at the height of the Cold War, set the foundation for space law. It declares that outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is "not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means."

The treaty was designed to keep the U.S. and the Soviet Union from planting flags and claiming territory beyond Earth. More than 110 countries have since ratified it, including all major spacefaring nations.

But the treaty was written long before commercial spaceflight existed. It does not clearly address whether companies or countries can extract and own resources such as water ice, metals or helium-3.

A later agreement, the 1979 Moon Agreement, attempted to declare lunar resources the "common heritage of mankind." Few countries joined, and none of the major space powers did.

The US approach: Artemis Accords

The United States has moved to fill the gap. In 2015, Congress passed a law allowing American citizens and companies to own resources they extract from space.

In 2020, NASA and the State........

© International Business Times