Wednesday marks the 60th anniversary of the flight of Sputnik, next year marks the 50th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 8, the first flight to ‘leave Earth’s gravity well’ and fly around the Moon, and we’re rapidly approaching the 50th anniversary of the first-time human beings walked on another celestial body. We’re well into the second half of the first century of the ‘Space Age’, so now seems like a good time to talk about heritage protection in space, especially as space heritage, which has up to now, largely been left alone[1], is potentially threatened by space tourism and other endeavours by ‘commercial space’ entities. None of this should be overly controversial, heritage protection is fairly common, and there is a specialized agency of the United Nations who has heritage protection as part of its remit (UNESCO).

There has been discussion of this issue for some time, and there have been efforts to protect space heritage. NASA released guidelines for the protection of US ‘lunar artifacts’ in July of 2011[2], this was prompted largely by the ‘stretch goal’ of the Google Lunar X-Prize for getting near one of the Apollo landing sites, which has caused not inconsiderable controversy.[3] Furthermore, there has been talks of creating a US ‘national park’ on the Moon, and there has been at least one bill introduced into the US Congress in an attempt to bring that about.[4] Furthermore, Dr Alice Gorman, Senior Lecturer in archaeology and space studies at Flinders University (Twitter handle @drspacejunk), has been long discussing space heritage and archaeology as an academic discipline in its own right, let alone something worth protecting.[5] She, in particular, discusses ‘space junk’ of historical significance, there are quite a few historically important satellites that are still up there, such as Prospero, the UK’s first and only (so far) British built satellite to be launched on a British built rocket (from Australia…). 46 years ago this month as it turns out (it still works by the way). You can see a model of Prospero and the Black Arrow rocket that launched it in the Science Museum in London.

Deploying Upper stage of Black Arrow Prospero

However, For All Moonkind[6], a new NGO, has been making quite a bit of press recently, at least in specialist space publications, with their campaign to provide internationally recognized protections for ‘heritage sites’ on the Moon, the Apollo landing sites in particular. That is essentially the impetus behind this post, in which I will discuss what the existing space law regime does to protect space heritage, what national governments can and cannot do to protect their space heritage and what the international community can do, including the ‘UNESCO’ solution. I did my undergraduate studies in history and have spent many happy hours in museums and ruins, heritage is worth protecting and promoting, whether it is on Earth or in space (and there needs to be more humanities students and specialists in the space fields anyway…) however any heritage protection in space needs to be practical and conform with the existing space law regime.

As for the existing space law regime, we once again start with the Outer Space Treaty. Articles VI, VII, VIII and IX are the key ones here. Article VI, as has been mentioned in previous posts, requires States to authorise and supervise the activities of their nationals in Outer Space. Article VII says that States who launch or from whose territory an object is launched for shall be liable for damages. The Liability Convention[7] further develops this; damage on Earth gives rise to ‘absolute’ liability, damage not on Earth is ‘fault based.’ Article VIII of the Outer Space Treaty says that States retain jurisdiction and control over their space objects in space or on a celestial body. And Article IX OST says that States should avoid interference with the activities of others.

This provides some protection for space heritage. Take the Apollo 11 lunar lander as an example. It remains the property of the United States government and is under their jurisdiction and control. Therefore, any State that authorises any mission to the Sea of Tranquillity would potentially be liable to the United States for any damage caused to the lunar lander or any of its ‘component parts.’ Article IX probably wouldn’t apply as the US isn’t really carrying out any activities in the Sea of Tranquillity, but it’s still worth keeping in mind. There are gaps in this protection, obviously. First, in order to be liable there would have to be fault, besides that’s a remedy not a protection. Second, it relies on the authorising State being wary enough of incurring liability for damage to keep the operator away from the heritage site. Third, it doesn’t protect things like the first footprint, assuming that doesn’t qualify as a ‘component part’ (I’d argue that it isn’t, but I wouldn’t rule out someone being able to argue that it is.)

This is why there have been calls for the US to establish some kind of National Park (not necessarily an actual National Park like Yellowstone, but at the very least a ‘no go’ zone enforced by the US to protect its lunar heritage). However, whatever form this proposal takes runs into two very big problems in the forms of Articles I and II of the Outer Space Treaty. As my regular readers will probably know by now, Article I provides for free access to space and celestial bodies for all states, and Article II prohibits ‘national appropriation’ of space or celestial bodies by any means. Which restricts the ability for one State (say the USA) to prohibit access to any area of the Moon or any other celestial body for any other State. The US can ban any and all of its citizens from all of space for the rest of eternity if it really wanted to, but to ban say a Chinese company from the Sea of Tranquillity would be a violation of Articles I and II of the Outer Space Treaty. That’s to say nothing of being unenforceable.

This is why many look to UNESCO. It is a specialized agency of the United Nations, and therefore has international legitimacy (that’s debatable actually but not one for this post) and already has a role in heritage protection (see World Heritage Sites like Saltaire in Yorkshire.[8]) It therefore seems logical to extend UNESCO protection to sites on the Moon and perhaps even anywhere else in space deemed worthy of protecting. However, currently UNESCO requires that sites be under jurisdiction of a State and that State is the one responsible for maintaining and protecting the site. This is not an insurmountable obstacle but would require a retooling of the way UNESCO works. For what it’s worth the ‘UNESCO option’ has long been my preferred option. For All Moonkind also embraces a version of the ‘UNESCO option’, they are calling on the United Nations to take action to protect space heritage sites, the six Apollo landing sites in particular. They cite UNESCO as precedent for UN action but don’t commit themselves exclusively to the UNESCO model, after all a bespoke model would work too and may, in fact, be better.

It’s an interesting and important issue, and as a history graduate one of particular interest to myself. I urge you to check out For All Moonkind and make a donation. There’s also plenty of space heritage sites here on Earth that are well worth checking out, and not just in Florida!

[1]Apollo 12…

[2]https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/617743main_NASA-USG_LUNAR_HISTORIC_SITES_RevA-508.pdf

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Lunar_X_Prize

[4]https://www.space.com/22131-moon-landing-sites-bill-controversy.html

[5]https://theconversation.com/trash-or-treasure-a-lot-of-space-debris-is-junk-but-some-is-precious-heritage-82832; https://theconversation.com/look-but-dont-touch-us-law-and-the-protection-of-lunar-heritage-20758 (to provide just two examples)

[6]http://forallmoonkind.org

[7]http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/gares/ARES_26_2777E.pdf

[8]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltaire