24.03.2026

During a wide-ranging interview with former CBS investigative reporter Catherine Herridge, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman opened his mind about how the space agency intends to start building a lunar base.

“We are going to start immediately…we can do this with uncrewed robotic vehicles and landers and we are going to start in 2027. And I think the public is going to be able to tune in and almost watch us build this space in real time as we start landing on the moon,” Isaacman said. 

A piece in Payload suggests that Isaacman’s plan is to send monthly flights of Commercial Lunar Payload Services scale landers to deploy items like communications equipment and power generation tools, such as a nuclear reactor. Rovers might move lunar regolith around to build landing pads for larger, Human Landing System-sized landers.

Building a lunar base has been U.S. public policy since shortly after the beginning of the second Trump administration. When the current NASA authorization act passes both houses of Congress, it will likely be a matter of public law. SpaceX’s Elon Musk has committed to a lunar base. However, Isaacman’s casual remarks raise some questions,

First, why so soon?

While the initial building campaign will involve smaller, Commercial Lunar Payload Services-sized landers, eventually NASA will have to scale things up. For a planned crewed lunar landing to take place in early 2028, one or both of the planned moon landers, the SpaceX Starship and the Blue Origin Blue Moon, should conduct uncrewed test landings. That being the case, they might as well carry lunar base infrastructure as well.

Having some of the infrastructure of a lunar base already in place would be of immense advantage for the first crew of astronauts to land on the moon perhaps a few months later. Equipment, supplies and perhaps even a habitat would greatly enhance what the crew of Artemis IV and subsequent missions can do on the moon’s surface.

The other reason for starting a lunar base so soon may be rooted in space law, both established and evolving. In other words, it stems from the question of how to deal with the other great space power, the People’s Republic of China.

Article II of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, of which both the United States and China are signatories, states that “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means,” is the most quoted provision.

However, Article IX, which concerns potential interference by one state party or another of activities in outer space, including the moon, is also of interest. The treaty does not have many enforcement provisions if — say China — were to interfere with the activities of an American lunar base. But that brings us to the more recent Artemis Accords.

The Artemis Accords, a nonbinding agreement between (so far) 61 countries, is meant to revise and extend the provisions of the Outer Space Treaty. Paragraph seven of Section 11 is the relevant provision. It says the treaty’s signers must “provide notification of their activities and commit to coordinating with any relevant actor to avoid harmful interference,” in a dedicated “safety zone” where “nominal operations of a relevant activity or an anomalous event could reasonably cause harmful interference.” 

The section goes on to define what can be considered to be inside a safety zone. Interestingly, the safety zone can change in size as the operation (i.e. a lunar base) evolves.

In real-world terms, when the first lander delivers cargo, whether it’s a single survey rover or more substantial parts of a lunar base, to a construction site, the United States can inform other state parties that they need to keep out to avoid a violation of Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty.

On the one hand, the United States could claim operational control of a swath of lunar territory that would include useful resources, especially water ice in nearby dark craters. On the other hand, China has not signed the Artemis Accords and may be, to put it mildly, perturbed. What Beijing can do about it is another matter.

I admit I am not a space lawyer or a lawyer of any kind, and I would like to hear thoughts from those who are. But, in the end, all will depend on how current and future American administrations choose to interpret the Outer Space Treaty and the Artemis Accords.

Quelle: The Hill