Space pioneers looking to tap into vast mineral resources will find a place with little regulation.

While national governments and global organizations have taken some steps to establish legal frameworks for exploring and exploiting celestial bodies, astronauts and future space miners face an environment with few rules to protect them. The treaties and laws on the books do not always agree, and they leave open questions of coordination and enforcement. Without more structure, investors may be reluctant to pour money into expensive missions.

"The difference between whether space mining is a fun curiosity that's a cool thing to watch on YouTube versus a large substantial industry that significantly impacts economies on Earth will be policy," Alex Gilbert, director of space and planetary regulation at Zeno Power Systems Inc., told Commodity Insights. Zeno Power Systems develops and manufactures radioisotope power systems.

United Federation of Planets it isn't

Since the Cold War, the world has created a patchwork of national laws and international treaties that reference resource extraction, albeit sometimes indirectly.

More than 60 countries, including the US, the Soviet Union and the UK, signed the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, also known as the "Magna Carta of Space." The treaty does not address space mining, but it states that all celestial bodies are "free for exploration and use" and that space cannot be "appropriated" by a state or private entity.

"So, no one can own outer space, but that doesn't answer the question of whether you can own the resources," Tanja Masson-Zwaan, deputy director of the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University, told Commodity Insights.

In 1979, the UN adopted the Moon Agreement, which calls for the creation of an international regime to govern space mining. Although a handful of countries ratified the agreement, none of the leading nations in space exploration, such as the US, Soviet Union or China, signed on.

A similar framework regulates deep sea mining but has "failed," Gilbert said. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, adopted in 1982, has failed to issue a mining code or extraction permits. And while the sea regulation does include China, its authority is weakened by the absence of the United States, much like the Moon Agreement.

However, a more unified approach for space would help, according to experts.

"There is a feeling that space law is being ignored," said Ram Jakhu, a professor of international space law at McGill University in Montreal and author of Space Mining and its Regulation. "We've developed technology, we're developing activity, but we've stopped developing law. That is a very dangerous thing."

More than 30 countries signed the Artemis Accords in 2020 to address the issue. The nonbinding agreement, which includes the US, states that space resources can "benefit humankind" and resource extraction does not inherently constitute "national appropriation" or ownership of celestial bodies.

"From a soft law perspective, I think the appropriation question is starting to be answered. Where we are heading now is much more over resource conflict," Gilbert said.

Both Russia and China have refrained from joining the Artemis Accords and are likely to govern their space activities separate from the agreement.

Alone in a big empty space

Experts largely agree the current international political climate creates challenges for collaboration. Relations between world superpowers China and the US have been tense, including ongoing trade restrictions between the two countries for key battery metals. Meanwhile, Russia, historically a leader in space exploration, is engaged in a war with Ukraine and the US has allied with Ukraine, putting the two space leaders at odds. India, a newer entrant into the space race, has complex relationships with each of the space powers, balancing a space cooperation agreement with the US while buying sanctioned Russian oil and skirmishing with China over its Himalayan border.

"It is not very likely that an agreement will be found in a geopolitically complicated world where consensus is almost impossible on anything small, let alone anything big," said Masson-Zwaan.

With little cooperation happening internationally, countries have developed their own space mining policies.

The US far outspends other countries in space for exploration and national defense. US spending on space-related exploration and defense activities is estimated at $73.2 billion in 2023, with the next highest spender, China, spending just $14.2 billion, according to data from Euroconsult, a consultancy focused on space and satellite applications.

The US adopted the world's first space resources law in 2015, the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, and founded the world's first space military in 2019. The law recognizes the right of private companies to own and sell materials gathered in space, and the US Space Force can enforce it. A few other countries, such as Japan and Luxembourg, have enacted their own space rules. That could put the US on a collision course with signatories of the Moon Agreement and other international deals.

The United Arab Emirates has also regulated various space activities, including mining under the UAE Space Law of 2019.

In space, no one can hear your plea

As more countries and private companies pursue ambitions outside of the Earth's orbit, they are expected to compete for resources or dispute ownership of certain areas in space. There are few premium mining locations on the moon, most notably near shadowed craters where water accumulates. The Artemis Accords fail to state how mining claims would be divvied up and managed, though the guidance calls for safety zones to mark out mining claims and provide buffer zones around activity.

Without clear rules or enforcement mechanisms, investors are left with more risk than they might tolerate, creating a drag on the whole enterprise.

"I need to be sure if I invest X amount of money and run a contract with somebody that can be enforced, that nobody else is just going to take that money or that investment away for no good reason," Jan Osburg, a senior engineer with American nonprofit RAND Corp., told Commodity Insights. "This all points toward the need to do additional thinking ahead of time [about legal frameworks] and, hopefully, start some sort of consensus building."

Resource removal from celestial bodies could also have unintended and even yet-unknown consequences. Experts are discussing the issue of an increase in space debris, which is already a major safety hazard for rockets, and pollution on celestial bodies that could inhibit future mining activity if a framework for remediation is not created.

"My hope, personally, is that policymakers and stakeholders start thinking more about space mining at large, and that includes the environmental aspects," said Mary Lee, a researcher at the RAND Corp. and inaugural fellow of the group's Center for Global Risk and Security. "What that would look like ... I don't know. We can't even agree on environmental accords on Earth."

There seems to be little traction in figuring out the details of a legal framework for space, but without them, the only rule will be determined by who gets there first.

"There is a big risk of a space race if no rules can be agreed upon," Laura Zielinski, a lawyer specializing in international arbitration and space law at Holland & Knight, told Commodity Insights.