Opinion | Threat of US-China land grab in space demands urgent legal reforms

The United States is in an arms race with China, similar to the one it had with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Space is being militarised as Beijing and Washington are on a course to dismantle the few current limits on space competition devised in that earlier era.

The US was first to land on the moon in July 1969. China started its crewed space programme relatively late, launching its first crewed flight in October 2003 and making remarkable achievements since. Beijing has announced plans to land a crewed mission on the moon by 2030 and launch a mission to secure samples from the Martian surface the same year.

America set a lander down on Mars in 1976, and Nasa is working to land humans on the moon again by the end of this decade. Nasa also plans for a crewed Mars mission in the 2030s, with Elon Musk setting SpaceX’s goal for crewed landings as early as 2029.

What rules will govern the establishment of a human presence on the moon and elsewhere in the solar system, governing claims of sovereignty, the exploitation of resources and the militarisation of space? What will happen to current international undertakings concerning the prohibition of placing weapons of mass destruction in space?

Jon B. Wolfsthal, director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists, recently said that China, Russia and others are “testing new ways to deliver these weapons, including … nuclear weapons in space that can attack satellites or targets on Earth without warning”.

Such space activity is nominally governed by current international law. Hence, strengthening the peaceful uses of space can only be done by negotiating with China and other nations which are bound by the same treaty obligations as the US. Where norms and rules are absent, they should be developed and adopted.