by When NASA attempted to return to the Moon for the first time in 50 years on January 8, more than just US$108 million in development and equipment was at stake.
The agency earned the ire of the Navajo Native American people, who tried to stop the shipment because of unusual inclusions in the payload.
The Falcon lander (which completed its controlled re-entry into the atmosphere late last week) was carrying human ashes, including those of famed science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. A commercial partnership also allowed paying customers to send their mementos to the moon.
As space exploration becomes increasingly privatized and commercialized, you can now send your favorite things to the moon. But what does that mean, ethically and legally?
Related: Failure of private Falcon moon lander won’t stop NASA’s ambitious commercial lunar program
The moon is open for business
The Falcon, which is the size of a small car, is owned by US company Astrobotic. It ran into fatal fuel issues shortly after launch on a Vulcan Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral.
On board are “vanity canisters.” The idea emerged in partnership between the firm and global freight company DHL.
Under the arrangement, anyone can send a two-and-a-half-centimeter by five-centimeter package to the lunar surface for less than US$500. Apart from size, there were some other restrictions on what each package could contain.
Astrobotic, founded in 2007 and based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is one of several US companies providing commercial lunar payload services to NASA to deliver science and technology to the Moon. The Falcon was carrying scientific instruments from six countries and many scientific teams as well.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, sending ashes into space on suborbital and Earth orbit flights is nothing new.
Two American companies do business with the service starting at a few thousand dollars – Celestis and Elysium Space. The practice has been adopted by many, including astronauts who have been in space.
A Moon burial (yes, you can buy one) costs more – about US$13,000.
Commercial payloads sent from US soil require approval, but that approval process only covers safety, national security and foreign policy.
Had the Hawk done it, it would have marked the first commercial lunar burial. It’s an unusual ending as another life emerges within it, although this isn’t the first time it’s come up.
NASA has promised to consult in the future after the Navajo outburst when, 20 years ago, it carried some of Eugene Shoemaker’s ashes to the Moon aboard the Lunar Prospector probe. Like many other indigenous cultures, the Navajo Nation considers the Moon sacred and opposes its use as a memorial site.
However, NASA said in a press briefing that it had no control over what was on the Falcon, highlighting the gaps between commercial enterprise and international space law.
Legal mine area
Another question concerns the rules in individual nations about where and how human ashes can be found, handled and transported and how these could be extended to space. For example, in Germany, ashes must be buried in a cemetery.
As the privatization of space intensifies, the ethical and legal maze increases.
The Outer Space Treaty (UST) declares that space is the “province of all mankind” and prohibits national appropriation.
However, it fails to address what private companies and individuals can do.
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The recent Artemis Accords, signed by 32 nations, extend protection to lunar sites of historical significance. But these protections only apply to governments, not commercial missions.
And no one has the Moon to grant burial rights, or any other world or heavenly body.
The treaty requires states to authorize and supervise activities in space. It requires “due regard” to the interests of other states.
Many countries have space laws that include grounds for rejecting payload items that are not in the national interest, such as Indonesia and New Zealand.
Nations that do not seem to have such considerations, including Australia and the USA, may need to consider extending this template to the emergence of the commercial world in the traditional world of government.
Where to draw the line?
Earth’s orbit is already covered with defunct satellites and, further out, items like Elon Musk’s Tesla.
We’ve already scattered space probes to other worlds, including the Moon, Mars, Titan, and Venus, but many could be treasure rather than junk, according to space archaeologist Alice Gorman.
For example, the Apollo astronauts left official memorials, such as a plaque marking the first human steps on the surface of the moon. Some people also left personal ones, like Charles Duke of Apollo 16, who left a framed family photo.
However, clipping your hair or pet ashes to the Moon may not qualify as cultural and historical significance.
The problem, then, is where we want to draw a line in the sand as we step out into the cosmos on the shores of another world.
We cannot turn back the clock on private space ventures, nor should we.
But this failed mission exemplifies the ashes and faint payloads of the unexplored questions in the legal and ethical infrastructure to support commercial activities.
Future commercialization such as mining asteroids and eventual space colonization is worth considering.
