Civilization on the Moon -- and what it means for life on Earth | Jessy Kate Schingler

TED

Current Lunar Development Activity

China announced plans for inhabited South Pole station by 2030s
US has official roadmap for increasing people living/working in space
NASA's Artemis program: international effort to send first woman and next man to Moon this decade
Private sector involvement unprecedented
- Over 100 launch companies worldwide
- ~12 private lunar transportation companies preparing robotic missions
First reusable rockets in human history enable infrastructure development and resource utilization

Scientists estimate up to 1 billion metric tons of water ice on Moon
- Greater than size of Lake Erie
- Enough water to support hundreds of thousands of people living/working on Moon
Moon roughly size of continent of Africa
Key resources concentrated in small areas near poles
Real possibility of people living/working on Moon within next decade

Coordinating access to scarce resources
Legitimate questions about colonialism, cultural heritage
Reproducing systemic inequalities of today's capitalism
Earth challenges: internet governance, pandemics, terrorism, climate crisis, biodiversity loss
Moon as destination embodies problematic qualities: frontier attitude, conquest, competition

Two decades working on international space policy
Bottom-up governance design in small community projects
Age 17: attended UN conference on peaceful uses of outer space, Vienna
- 160 young people from 60+ countries over 2 weeks
- Made recommendations to Member States about space's role in humanity's future
Post-conference: lived with 20 people in high-trust group
- Experimented with social technologies
- Governance systems: CEO assignment to jury processes
- Small groups as petri dish for representation, sustainability, opportunity questions

Signed 1967, defines treaty governing outer space activities including Moon
Two key ingredients altering legal construction basis:
1. Requirement for free access to all areas of celestial body
2. Moon and celestial bodies not subject to national appropriation
Contrasts with earthly international system built on state sovereignty
Creates conditions for "commons" based on Elinor Ostrom's Nobel Prize-winning work
Global commons: shared resources requiring collective management for survival/well-being

Offer greenfield for institution design at global/interplanetary level
Questions: property rights, resource management without external authority/private property
Existential threats (climate, internet governance, authoritarianism) require new tools
Need to incorporate commons-based logic into global/space institutions

WWII anti-fascist activist, arrested and held under Gestapo death sentence
Post-war: worked into diplomatic corps
First permanent representative of Malta to UN
Identified gap: international law lacked tools for shared global resource management
1967 UN speech: introduced "common heritage of mankind" concept for oceans
Language adopted in Law of the Sea Treaty
- Most sophisticated commons-management regime on planet
- Took 12+ years to gain signatures, some states still refuse to sign
- Objection: obligation to share undermined state autonomy/sovereignty

Space community discussing basic shared agreements:
- Designating lunar heritage sites
- Landing permission protocols without traditional external authority
- Enforcing coordination requirements without territorial control
- Managing access to scarce resources: water, minerals, peaks of eternal light
Peaks of eternal light: craters at optimal latitude for near-constant sunlight exposure/power

Lack of Moon rules could lead to first-come, first-served situation
Opportunity to prototype new institutions at global scale
Self-contained environment with exact design constraints for Earth's biggest challenges
Easier to create new than dismantle old systems
Stage set to envision what comes after territory and borders

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