Trump Executive Order Encourages Mining The Moon

The Guardian reports:

The world may be racked by the coronavirus, but Donald Trump has less earthly concerns on his mind, too, after signing an executive order encouraging the US to mine the moon for minerals.

The executive order makes clear that the US doesn’t view space as a “global commons”, opening the way for the mining of the moon without any sort of international treaty. According to Trump’s executive order, the US will object to any attempt to use international law to hinder its efforts to remove chunks of the moon or, should the opportunity arise, additional mining of Mars and “other celestial bodies”.

The president appeared to be confused about the composition of space, however, when he tweeted in June that NASA “should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part).”

For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2019

#Russia’s space agency has blasted #Trump for declaring outer #space the legal equivalent of the Wild West. The US President officially wants to mine the moon and get companies in orbit to start seizing whatever resources they can get their hands on

MORE: https://t.co/r1SUHY7qHN pic.twitter.com/h5U4OnDEoR

— RT (@RT_com) April 7, 2020

Just when you thought this couldn’t all get more ridiculous…https://t.co/tC3sps5PpF

— Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) April 8, 2020