“一小步”行为鼓励保护人类在太空中的遗产|事情怎兴发首页x么样

Apollo 11“width= — Astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin poses for a photo beside the U.S. flag that was placed on the moon. The lunar module is visible on the far left, as well as numerous footprints in the foreground. The goal of this new law is to protect all of these.NASA

It's hard to care about bootprints sunk in soil 238,900 miles (384,472 kilometers) away as humanity suffers the combined burden of an unforgiving virus and a political unease. But how humans treat those bootprints and the historic月球着陆点upon which they are found will speak volumes about who we are and who we seek to become.

12月31日，保护人类遗产在太空法案中的一小步became law. As far as laws go, it's pretty benign. It requires companies that are working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on lunar missions to agree to be bound by otherwise unenforceable guidelines intended to protect American landing sites on the moon. That's a pretty small pool of affected entities.

但是，这也是任何认识到外太空中人类遗产存在的国家制定的第一条法律。这很重要，因为它重申了我们人类对保护我们历史的承诺 - 就像我们在地球上与像Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu，，，，which is protected through instruments like the World Heritage Convention — while also acknowledging that the human species is expanding into space.

我是一个lawyer who focuses on space issues旨在确保太空的和平且可持续的探索和使用。我相信人们可以通过太空实现世界和平。为此，我们必须认识到月球和其他天体上的着陆点是他们所取得的普遍人类成就，建立在这个地球上几个世纪的科学家和工程师的研究和梦想上。我认为，在分裂性的政治环境中制定的一小步法案表明，空间和保存确实是无党派的，甚至是统一的原则。

月亮变得拥挤，很快

在我们看到月球上连续的人类存在之前，这只是数十年的问题，也许只有几年。

虽然很高兴认为月球上的人类社区将是一个合作，跨国公司的乌托邦 - 尽管位于Buzz Aldrin著名地描述为“壮丽的荒凉“— the fact is, people are once again racing one another to reach our lunar neighbor.

美国。Artemis项目这是最雄心勃勃的任务，其中包括将第一位女性送到月球上的目标。俄罗斯振兴了它的Luna program，将舞台设置为2030年代将宇航员放在月球上。但是，在曾经为超级大国保留的一场比赛中，现在有multiple nationsand多个私人公司有木桩。

印度正在计划to send a rover to the moon this year.China该公司在2020年12月实施了自1976年以来首次成功的月球返回任务，在未来几年宣布了多个月球着陆与中国媒体报道在十年之内，船员执行任务的计划。韩国andJapan还在建造月球着陆器和探测器。

Such private companies as Astrobotic,Masten Space SystemsandIntuitive Machines正在努力支持NASA任务。其他公司，例如iSpace，，，，蓝月亮and空间X，同时还支持NASA任务，准备提供私人任务，including possibly for tourism。How are all these different entities going to work around one another?

月球着陆“width= — This image shows the locations of all manned and unmanned lunar landings to date.
cmglee/wikimedia（CC BY-SA）

维持月球法律

空间is not lawless. The 1967外太空条约，，，，now ratified by 110 nations, including all of the current spacefaring countries, offers guiding principles supporting the concept of space as the province of all humankind. The treaty explicitly indicates that all countries and, by implication, their nationals have the freedom to explore and free access to all areas of the moon.

That's right. Everyone has the freedom to roam wherever they want — over Neil Armstrong's bootprints, close to sensitive scientific experiments or right up to a mining operation. There is no concept of property on the moon. The only restriction on this freedom is the remonstration, found in Article IX of the treaty, that all activities on the moon must be carried out with "适当考虑的相应利益“所有其他人以及您可能造成“有害干扰”的要求。

What does that mean? From a legal standpoint, no one knows.

It can reasonably be argued that interfering with an experiment or a lunar mining operation would be harmful, cause quantifiable damage and thus violate the treaty.

但是废弃的航天器，例如鹰，阿波罗11月兰德? Do we really want to rely on "due regard" to prevent the intentional or inadvertent destruction of this inspiring piece of history? This object memorializes the work of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who worked to put a human on the moon, the astronauts and cosmonauts who gave their lives in this quest to reach the stars, and the quiet heroes, like凯瑟琳·约翰逊，他推动了这一数学的数学。

登陆站点 - 来自露娜2，，，，the first human made object to impact the moon, to each of the crewed阿波罗任务，，，，toChang-e 4，它在月球远处部署了第一只漫游者，特别是见证了迄今为止人类最大的技术成就。它们象征着我们作为一个物种所取得的一切，并对未来保持这种希望。

宇航员足迹“width= — 这张图像可见宇航员艾伦·谢泼德（Alan Shepard）和埃德加·米切尔（Edgar Mitchell）所留下的路径。（在第二次月球步行的尽头，谢泼德（Shepard）著名地击中了两个高尔夫球。）也可以看到月球模块的下降阶段。
美国宇航局的戈达德太空飞行中心/ASU

The One Small Step Act

一个小步骤是忠于其名称的。这是一小步。它仅适用于与NASA合作的公司；它仅与美国农历登陆场有关；它实施过时和未经测试为保护历史农的建议implemented by NASA in 2011. However, it offers significant breakthroughs. It is the first legislation from any nation to recognize an off-Earth site as having "杰出的普遍价值“对于人类，从一致批准的语言中获得的语言世界遗产大会。

该法案还鼓励开发最佳实践，通过发展适当关注和有害干预的概念来保护人类的遗产，这一演变还将指导国家和公司如何相互工作。尽可能小的一步，认识并保护历史遗址是开发和平，可持续和成功的月球治理模式的第一步。

The bootprints are not protected — yet. There is a long way to go toward an enforceable multilateral/universal agreement to manage the protection, preservation or memorialization of all human heritage in space, but the One Small Step law should give us all hope for the future in space and here on Earth.

Michelle L.D.汉隆是密西西比大学的空中和太空法教授。她隶属于All Moonkind，这是一个501（c）（3）非营利组织，旨在保护我们普通人类遗产的一部分，以保护六个人类月球着陆和外太空的类似地点。

This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. You can find theoriginal article here。