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President Donald Trump apparently doesn’t believe Americans have enough resources on Earth to mine so he is honing in on the moon.
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On Monday, Trump signed an executive order titled “Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources” giving the United States permission to mine the moon for its natural resources. The order directs the secretary of state to jumpstart efforts to get joint statements and bilateral agreements to “enable safe and sustainable operations for the commercial recovery and use of space resources.”
“Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity and the United States does not view space as a global commons,” the order reads.
“American industry and the industries of like-minded countries will benefit from the establishment of stable international practices by which private citizens, companies and the economy will benefit from expanding the economic sphere of human activity beyond the Earth,” the order adds.
For years, the United States has eyed the moon’s resources. Five years ago, Congress passed a law that gave American companies and citizens permission to use moon and asteroid resources. The United States also has declined to sign the 1979 Moon Treaty, which requires the use of space resources that are not scientific in nature to face international regulations.
The president’s order supports that policy.
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Russia doesn’t appear to be happy with Trump’s order. The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, said Trump was creating a path to seize other planets and said his order “damaged the scope for international cooperation in space,” according to Reuters. Space belongs to everyone not exclusively the United States, Roscosmos said in a statement.
“Attempts to expropriate outer space and aggressive plans to actually seize territories of other planets hardly set the countries (on course for) fruitful cooperation,” according to the statement.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added that “any kind of attempt to privatize space in one form or another— and I find it difficult to say now whether this can be seen as an attempt to privatize space— would be unacceptable,” reported Reuters.