 In this panel, we aim to get into the details of what's driving that set of activity that Matt was speaking to us about. So globally, as we've heard, government and private stakeholders are describing and implementing visions and plans for a sustained presence on the moon, a presence that would require multiple users, uses, and activities to interact in a manner that is sustainable. But at the same time, it's hard for us to talk about the future of lunar space activities, the future of civil space activities, without making comparisons to the original space race. And in some cases, that's a deliberate strategy to recreate that excitement, that tension, and the budgets, yes, the budgets of the 1960s Cold War. There are good reasons to expand into civil space and return to the moon, but there's also a lot of challenges and unknowns. So in our next hour discussion, let's ask realistically how the drivers and opportunities in civil lunar space align, or not align, with how that activity is being described. Brief reminder, Hoover exists, questions, we're going to get to them in this panel. Please submit those questions through the Hoover app. Bios for our speakers are also there in that app, so just very briefly going to go and introduce our speakers so we can get right into the discussion. To my immediate left, Caitlyn Johnson is the deputy director and fellow of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, often better known as CSIS. Caitlyn was the author of the CSIS report, Fly Me to the Moon, Worldwide CIS Lunar and Lunar Missions, which examines planned missions over the next decade from countries around the world. To Caitlyn's left, Matias Link is the director and a member of the executive committee at the Luxembourg Space Agency, where he works on the definition and implementation of Luxembourg Space Sector Development Policy, and also coordinates the Space Resources Initiative. To Matias' left is Richard Lowe, who is the director of technical services at the United Kingdom Satellite Applications Catapult, where he also serves as co-chair of the UK Space Industries Trade Association Working Group for In-Orbit Service and Manufacturer. To Richard's left, Asif Siddiqui is a professor of history at Fordham University here in New York, where he specializes in the history of science and technology and has written extensively on the history of space exploration. So let's go ahead and dive right into our discussion here. Caitlyn, I'm going to start with you. So Matias outlined a very busy CSIS lunar space environment or space activities in the coming decade. He referenced somewhere between 100 to 150 missions, depending on how you count. You've been researching these missions. So from that research, what can you tell us about the expected tempo, timing of these lunar missions, and beyond the traditional space hours, who's getting involved? Sure. Well, thank you to Secure World for inviting me today. I'm delighted to be here and to talk about CSIS lunar space. It's not often that we put a lot of substance behind this conversation. Instead, we hear references to the space race on headlines, and so I'm excited to dive deeper into the actual motivators and drivers of going back to the moon. I did do a research project that looked at what that environment will look like in the next 10 years. And yes, I came out with like 106, so somewhere within max range. And I'm sure I missed some because it is incredible the amount of new companies and new nations as well getting involved in CSIS lunar space. So it's not just from the Artemis program from NASA or from the Lunar program driven by Russia or China, but really we're seeing a global effort. And uniquely, I think, a commercial effort. This is going to really change the way that we think about setting good rules behavior and norms, standards of operation, when commercial companies may be the first to return to the moon before a government. And so it really can impact how we approach this problem early and often. And I think General Shaw really hit it on the head this morning of we know what we did wrong in near-earth space and we can do better in CSIS lunar space. So there is this huge push in the next decade to send dozens of missions. Now, space is hard, rocket science is hard. We all know this, so a lot of those timelines may shift. But I really do anticipate us seeing a lot of activity in the next five to ten years. And it's creating ripple effects. And papers like the OSTP one have really incentivized I think the US, but also our allies and partners and other nations who are interested in being a part of this movement to start talking about these issues and thinking out ahead on how do we make sure that CSIS lunar space and the moon are more sustainable than our near-earth orbits. All right. Thank you, Caitlin. So, Matthias, coming to you. So where does Luxembourg fit here? You've joined the Artemis program. You have a policy focus on space resources development, policy general motivations and policy interests for Luxembourg in returning to the moon. Yeah, thank you very much, Ian. And first of all, thank you very much for inviting me here. And for this great event, it's amazing the quality that you were able to put together in terms of the agenda. And it's also very interesting to see how broad the topic of sustainability actually is. So it has many different aspects to be considered, including what we are discussing now on the moon. Now for the role of Luxembourg, I have to just maybe recall where we come from. Luxembourg has been active in space since several decades. We started in the 1980s with the creation of the company SES that you heard of from yesterday in particular. And so we started with a policy in general that was very much oriented towards commercial space. That's what we know. That's how we approach space. So and it's also absolutely key for us in terms of the national strategy to build our ecosystem in space, to develop the space sector, and especially the commercial space sector. And indeed, we launched in 2016 the Space Resources.LU initiative with the intention to promote the peaceful exploration and sustainable utilization of space resources for the benefit of humankind. And that's why that's because we think that this will be the next big thing in the SES lunar economy and beyond. It's really using the resources, of course, for exploration. It's very much related to that, to the agency plans, but it's much more than that. One of the foundations to create a true in-space economy. And of course, there are still many, many challenges ahead of us. It's also more long term, even though sometimes you get a feeling of a race that we have to be very quick. But I think we all know in terms of space resources, at least, that this will still take some time. And of course, you have to solve the challenges around technology, technology development, demonstration of these technologies in space. You have a huge challenge around legal and regulatory issues. And Copwurst was mentioned several times. I was there last week. I can tell you it can be very frustrating. But in the end, it's progressing. There's the financial challenge. We're speaking about commercial companies. So we need also investors. We need to find these investors and we need to reinsure them that there is something that they can invest their money here. And of course, there's the business challenge. So we talk about different... We see these markets coming up in maybe 10, 20, maybe even more years. But how do you actually create these markets? So there's also a road for governments and space agencies to help here. And so at the Luxembourg Space Agency, we've been doing this now for seven years in very much detail, even more if I see the preparative work that went into it. And we have a whole strategy basically addressing all these challenges in parallel because of course they are very much interrelated. And there is a lot of movement here in all these different challenges that can be solved and where we see a progress going forward. Thank you, Sir. The feeling of a race but in a long-term development pathway is an interesting dynamic. And of course, we can come back to this metaphor of using a race. It's definitely not a race, we think, with just one winner. There are several winners, there are opportunities for a lot of entities, both private and public. And of course, we hope that this is going to be done in a very inclusive and international way so that there are many winners in the end. All right, so Richard, I'm going to turn to you with a somewhat similar question. So the UK, the country you're from, it is also an Artemis program participant. But I don't think the UK is having a deep history of involvement in lunar activities. From the perspective of the satellite applications catapult in your mission to increase the utilization of space technology, what is the opportunity for the UK in participating in lunar activities? Thank you. So I'm privileged to be here and I think in particular I'm privileged to be amongst such a community of like-minded people. I think that's what struck me particularly over the last few days that everybody is coming at the sustainability angle in such a unified way. From the perspective of the UK and the satellite applications catapult that I represent, just particularly from the catapult organization's direction, our remit, the way we express what it is that we're here to do is as innovating for a better world empowered by space. And that's why we're one of the sponsors for this event, that sort of better world aspect. And it's also why I think we see the UK as having a substantial future in lunar exploration. It's, I think for all participants in lunar exploration, it's about science, it's about technology, inspiration, opportunities and so on. Many of the themes that we heard about earlier in the presentation are exactly aligned to where the UK sees its own opportunities. So we're already working into lunar communication systems. We're already working into navigation capability in this lunar space. We're already working into science and remote sensing and so on. These are all the things that every participant in lunar exploration hopes to get out of the exercise. We don't have, we haven't had our own lunar program in the past, but absolutely the UK was involved and had engagement in the original Apollo exercises. Indeed, some of the data from the Apollo landings landed back on Earth in grand stations located in the UK. And that legacy has gone on for a long time since then. People, Brits came back from the Apollo missions. They brought with them understanding gained. They became the core of the emerging space sector in the UK. And I think we see the same exercise here. All those same opportunities, again, will come about. If there's opportunity for anyone in this lunar exploration, then there's opportunity for the UK and everyone. So we do have a legacy of lunar activities from prior, prior activities, bad English, but we've done this. We've been to the moon. We've taken that experience and built it into how we approach the space sector today and how we're looking for new opportunities and growing that. So, Asif, coming to you from maybe a historical perspective here, right? So we're looking both on the title of this panel. It's still not a lunar space race. And the activities are already starting to describe here. We definitely have a tendency to refer back to that Apollo space race that we know and make those analogies to today. From your perspective, as one of the foremost historians on the Apollo era, was this actually a race? Do we have the mythology right? And what's the reality of what happened then versus the narrative that we hear? Right. Well, first of all, thank you, Ian. And it's great to be here for so many reasons. Just to quickly get to your question. I think if you, two points really. One, as a kind of historically bounded set of events between, let's say, Sputnik and the landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969. Yes, there's a, we can think of it as a race between two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. But I do want to make two points. One is, the first is that the space, human exploration of space, not human spaceflight, but actually launching satellites began in 1957, during a time of the International Geophysical Year, which was considered a kind of global cooperative space project. But yet it quickly devolved into a very high stakes race, very soon by the 1960s. So a global collaboration doesn't necessarily ensure any kind of that, the continuity of those sorts of initiatives really have to work a lot of different ways. But secondly, we forget that prior to landing in 1969, there's an enormous amount of investment in robotic exploration of the moon, both by the Soviets and the United States in terms of all sorts of smaller benchmarks like the first lunar impact, first pictures of the far side, first lunar landing, soft landing, first lunar orbit, et cetera. So you can go down the list and it's, we forget, but in those little races, which there were many, the Soviet Union was really predominant and dominated almost every single benchmark. But it's forgotten because the big one was won by the United States. So I think one of the things that I draw from that experience is that, and thinking about now it seems to me there are a lot of little races going on. I do think that, for better or for worse, that's how we think about it, whether we publicly acknowledge it or not. There are a lot of little races going on, but I do think there's a couple of big milestones perhaps coming up that when I think of Apollo, that might be sort of comparatively important. One is, of course, the return of humans to the moon, whenever that happens in the near future. But the other one is the establishment of permanent human presence on the moon, whenever that is. And I think those are the really sort of big benchmarks. But there are a lot of little races, and just like in the 1960s. But I do, again, as a historian, I have to offer a caveat. There are similarities, but there are enormous differences, which I can also get into later, which, because as historians, we are very low to make those comparisons. We offer like 10 caveats, usually, about everything we say. I don't have time for the caveats, but I'll offer the generalizations right now. So there is a dynamic of competition, but it may be in smaller, more discreet chunks and different relationships than when they get big and interesting. All right. OK, so let's try to get a little bit deeper in some of the things that we've already raised here. And Caitlin, I'm going to circle back to the research that you've been doing. The driver's economic business programmatic behind the missions that you're assessing in the research. How do they compare to that discussion of geopolitical competition, resource competition, human off-Earth planet expansion? The drivers that we see in the discourse are the drivers that you're seeing in the reality of missions? I think the drivers are varied across governments, across industry, and there are many of them. So I jotted down several, and there are no particular order. But I would love to see how I've found these drivers, maybe, compare with the drivers from the first space race. And that's, of course, the potential for resources, which has spurred a lot of action. Economically, I think it's a bit unclear of how that might impact Earth, bringing resources back to Earth. But certainly, I think there's a great recognition that there's a lot of opportunity for Institute resourcing, how do we develop on the moon and then use that to propel us into deep space. There's, of course, the science. And Matt talked about the radio free zone on the far side of the moon, but also many more studies to be done. And a lot of these missions that I see planned in the next five to 10 years are science-driven missions. They are to test regolith or bring lunar samples back to Earth. They are to test water ice in craters and to continue doing that kind of research and science and to build from there to the exploration and testing for deep space. And so we see that really clearly with NASA's Moon to Mars plan. It's not just a moon plan. It is how do we get back to the moon, test these systems, life support, robotics, and then build forward to go on to Mars. And that is the goal there. Certainly these technological hurdles, there are many to be overcome. And we've talked about some of them already. But I also think there's a huge role here on national pride and prestige. In the United States, we have such a history because of the Apollo program that we often take for granted. And I was just across the pond and over in the UK and kind of popping around Europe. I know Lucky Me. Talking to the different space agencies involved and the different actors involved like ESA and their motivations for joining Artemis and going back to the moon. And it's not the same as the United States. It's a lot more focused on international collaboration, the science, the opportunities for partnerships, and to spur their own industries to participate. And so I think varied across governments, but also in the States. Certainly, we can't leave without talking about the geopolitical competition with China. And Administrator Nelson spoke about this in his budget hearings in order to make the case to Congress, which as a former Congressperson, he does very well. But of competing with China in this goal back to the moon, which really feeds into this race dynamic as if there is just one goal or one mission. And yet I think there's just such a diversity of different motivations across the board that that's why for me, this doesn't quite resonate as a space race. So there's a complexity here that the simple metaphor does not capture even some elements of it that do fit. So Caitlyn brought up the other country that we're all probably thinking about and haven't actually named until Caitlyn did it, and that's China. So questions are coming in in the chat and this is a comment here that says the space race narrative is mainly promoted mainly by the US, right? So Administrator Nelson and some of the things that we see in the media. But this panel is an international panel. And that's a good observation. So Richard, I'm going to put a question here to you. So here, much of the media and public conversation around the lunar activities has this US-China competition element to it. You're interested in the development of applications related to lunar activities, but you're not directly part of the US-China bilateral dynamic, right? So how much does this focus on the US-China dynamic detract from a bigger picture that you might be seeing in terms of lunar activities? Well, I think the perspective is, you're right. I think a little different from other nations. My sense from the UK is that there is less focus on that US-China dynamic to do with lunar exploration. And I think it is a bit distracting, I think. In general, if you go looking for a fight, then you will find a fight. I think that's probably the position I would start from. And so posing it as an oppositional process, you will find opposition. I think what would a race look like? What does winning actually look like? I think that's interesting to sort of ponder because the definition of this race and what victory represents isn't really expressed. If it is a race, then I think if we must think of it as a race, then I think it's much better to consider it a happy, friendly marathon rather than an angry sprint, let's say. We had what, in hindsight, you might characterise as something of an angry sprint in the 1960s. It burnt itself out in some respects. Obviously, it left a long legacy afterwards. But I think second time around, I'd rather we had maybe a three-legged marathon rather than a sprint in that sense. And so then I think you start to turn it into a good news story rather than a bad news story. And OK, in that context, what does winning look like? Well, actually, I think winning starts to look like cooperation. It actually starts to look like working together. The win scenario here is that the US and China resolve some of their differences and actually join forces in this respect. And that becomes a win-win situation in which both of those parties can be seen to have won. And actually, everyone has won, not just the two most prominent participants. I think take this as a comment from a Brit. Conquering new worlds doesn't always work out quite how you expect it to. All right. And on that note, quite a lot there. I think there's a number of questions that have come in around this idea of cooperation. So I do want to come back to that here and how that fits. Win-win-win, three-legged sprint, three-legged marathon. Beginning to think I need to track coach as part of my panels as well. But what you're getting at, again, is maybe the simplification of a single-party race just does not fit the environment from where you're seeing it. And so see if you've kind of already hinted at some of the differences that you see from your perspective. So is that true? What are these differences? And are we talking about a three-legged marathon? Are we talking about a relight, maybe, even? I don't know. Well, I think there are absolutely, there are so many differences between the 60s and now. And I'm sure most of us know what those differences are. But first of all, we've already been to the moon. Whoever it gets, not like somebody's, the China will get there first. That only changes the nature of what does a first actually mean. But second of all, the barriers to entry in terms of lunar exploration are very different now. And so many other actors are involved in the process for whatever reason, whatever goals they may have, that it changes the nature of the whole ecology of what's going on. And third, I think we know so much more about lunar and cis-lunar space and just generally about the moon that we did 50 years ago, which I think allows us, allows more actors to perhaps successfully do things that were much more difficult 50, 60 years ago. I do want to point out, to be a naysayer a little bit about, that there are differences. And I think, well, let me put this way, there are things that haven't changed much in those 50 years. One is that the moon is still the moon. It's still just as hard to get there. It's not like things have changed and things have gotten easier in terms of the actual physicality of what's going on. We're still using basically liquid, propellant, propulsion, chemical sources to get to the moon, which is also very old. And most importantly, the actual imperative to get to the moon, nobody has successfully demonstrated or made a profit going to the moon yet anyway. Now, of course, we envision somehow that may happen, but it hasn't happened yet. And so when people in the 60s were talking, there's lots and lots of enormous amount of studies in NASA and elsewhere about, oh, we're going to go do this. We're going to go get the minerals. There's an enormous amount of studies. That was 50, 60 years ago. So yet, it hasn't happened now yet. And I think because this stuff is hard, and I think it means that this stuff will continue to be hard in the next decade, two decades. And I'll just say one more thing. One of, Apollo was a fantastic technological achievement, hands down, incredible. But I think in many ways, it might have been the worst thing to happen to the American space program because it set the bar so high. Eight years from 1961 to 69 in the technology we had in the 60s were on the moon. Anything that happens after that, because we're always talking about the space race and space moon race and so forth, is going to be, it's not going to match up. We need to let go of our nostalgia for Apollo and kind of move on and work with different models than the old 1960s race. So I've heard some people refer to the Apollo hangover, that has continued. So it's always looking back on that excellent singular achievement and the national support behind it and the budgets that were behind it. Yeah, it's not going to happen, I don't think. So Matias, on that theme, the race, does this idea of a winner take all, get to the end, that's a race, does that drive sustainability? How does that relate to some of the programmatic, environmental, economic sustainability objectives that countries like Luxembourg are putting into policy? Yeah, clearly the winner takes it all is not really an option for us. And probably for most it's not an option, even though if I play the devil's advocate, dictatorship has its advantages, let's say. But that's clearly not an option in the geopolitical context we are in and especially also for the developing part of the world. That will not work, it's obvious. So what we need is to be as inclusive as possible, we need international cooperation to solve all these challenges. In the end, for the benefits of all of us, both public and private entities can have a share of the cake, let's say, and also both smaller countries like Luxembourg and larger ones, obviously. Now the question, of course, the interesting question is indeed, what is sustainability in the context of this lunar space and lunar operations and even beyond? And I think again, we've seen how broad sustainability can be defined and in the end, everything we discussed here over these two days can easily be expanded to the moon. So from our point of view, I would maybe focus on three main aspects of sustainability. The first one is like political sustainability. We need obviously international frameworks that are able to organize all of this and even though we take the angle of looking at it through space resource utilization, by extension, everything that is discussed, for example, at COPPOS on space resources is much broader in scope in the end and really concerns operations on the moon more broadly and there is some progress there. So even though COPPOS with its 100 member states, more than 100 member states is slow and it can be quite frustrating, in the end, there is definitely some progress. If I look back like past eight years when the topic of space resources started to be discussed at COPPOS, these were extremely difficult discussions with lots of resistance. Now there's a general feeling, even in the geopolitical context that we are in, that this is going to happen and that we need to find a solution. And I can tell you last week on the topic of space resources in Vienna, the discussions really took off, I would say with first elements on what needs to be actually tackled and there is some progress even with difficult, let's say bilateral relationships between certain countries. So that's definitely what I would say is a political sustainability that we need to ensure over the next years and I'm actually quite confident that this is feasible just because of practical reasons and of course there are other fora like the Artemis Accords but also Isaac G, for example, that also help in building up this sustainability. Then second is sustainability in an environmental sense. So obviously everything we discussed here for low earth orbit is also somehow by extension valid and for the moon we need to ensure that we, for example with resources that we responsibly use these resources that we take in circular economy and waste reduction and recycling concepts from the very start. I can give an example of what we did in Luxembourg together with the European Space Agency. We created the European Space Resource Innovation Center which is supposed to be like a center in Europe dedicated to the use of space resources and the big, big topic we address there is the sustainability on how you can do this and there's a lot to learn from the terrestrial mining sector actually. Of course all these things have already been addressed on earth and what we all want is to avoid the errors that we made here or some of the errors and do it better on the moon. And then the third point and that's especially important also for a country like Luxembourg is economic sustainability. If we want to create this commercial environment as well with companies that are also viable from a commercial point of view then we need to ensure this economic sustainability. We need to bring in private investors and also give them the assurance that all of this can work. But the good news is definitely that there is a broad positive movement in the right direction here that can clearly be seen. So. Matthias, I think you're keying up a number of things that's gonna lead actually into our next panel which looks at some of the space resources issues specifically in the context of governance agreements like Artemis Accords and the main agreement and that discussion. So kind of good demonstration of how these issues kind of cross across different areas of sustainability and of governance discussions. Couple of things I wanna pick up on those remarks but I just wanna give a chance to the other panelists if you wanna reflect on the idea of what is the relationship between a pathology around the space race and the sustainability objectives that in theory we're all interested to hear in this audience. I have a couple thoughts. I've been talking with some folks at Princeton who were enlightening me about how Sizzlinger orbits are incredibly complex and they're not as stable as our near-earth orbits. And so thinking about how do we dispose of debris in Sizzlinger space? We don't have the earth-like atmosphere that we can dispose of debris from Leo into. We can't burn things up. Obviously I think I can speak for all of us in the room. We don't wanna just crash those satellites into the moon constantly either especially if we have people there. But these Sizzlinger orbits are also much more complex and so we can't quite mimic the geograve yard either. So how do we get out in front of these questions as we see 100 plus missions heading to the moon? And thinking about sustainability of this Sizzlinger environment and the moon and the lunar surface and starting to work through some of these really challenging issues that cross technical astrophysics as well as those of us who work in policy and international cooperation. Because like the norms that we are trying to envision for near-earth space, for disposal and proper behavior, we have to come at this from an international solution. And perhaps we will have an easier time with a blank sheet of paper that is Sizzlinger space or the moon. But everything we do from space is because of where we sit on earth and the geopolitics on earth will always extend into those conversations. And so I think while the blank sheet of paper is a great optimistic view, we will carry these biases along with us. And so the lack of communication and cooperation that we're seeing in near-earth space on sustainability issues in SSA and STM is quite challenging as we think about an even more complex environment. All right, thank you. So 20 minutes left, got a number of questions here. Matias, I want to return to something actually that both you and Richard have already kind of mentioned. Matias, you mentioned ISACG, that is the International Space Exploration Coordination Group, did I get that right? There's, I think, 28 or so countries that participated that, including the US, including Russia, including China, including a number of emerging space nations, right? So we have a few questions here about, all right, let's step past talking about the space race and realize that we've got this growing ecosystem, growing number of actors that are interested in the moon. Where are the opportunities for cooperation or collaboration in that? So I'm never going to the moon, I'm never going to operate a mission to the moon myself, but I am terrified of lunar dust, right? So what can we do to build interoperability into lunar plans, build safety into lunar plans? I'll just open that up to anyone on the panel. I think if, perhaps if I come in there, I mean, I think one of the things we can do, which I think is influenced by this perceived race dynamic, is actually try and just ensure that we pursue decency in how we approach things, where we've got potential to leave debris behind on the moon or perhaps accidentally leave radioactive material splattered across an area of the moon or some such, then in the kind of race mentality, perhaps you walk past the other guys junk and say, well, that's not my junk, I'm leaving it there. But I think actually we've got to pursue a more sort of decency-based approach to this in how we proceed. So perhaps the US astronaut does pick up the Chinese failed unit there, albeit with permission. But I think we have to try and get to a state where all parties view that as the right thing to do, just decency in the way that we operate. Could I just jump in real quick? Okay, in my mind, I envision the future of where there are perhaps two lunar bases. There's the Chinese Russian lunar base that's planned, there's the American led armist base. If those are the only humans on the moon and something happens, like that human instinct to help one another, I think is critical. And so if we can't cooperate on a government level and the Chinese lunar bases has a hub that our astronauts can get to safely if something were to happen, that kind of human first safety needs to happen. And I think that is a great avenue for coordination and cooperation, but it's gonna start with basic communication, which we heard from General Shaw is fairly limited between the United States and China. The US kind of hampers itself with the Wolf Amendment and being able to communicate with China from a NASA standpoint. But we need to break down some of these barriers in the case of those types of life or death situations that we can safely house one another or we can communicate if there are certain lines of transportation between the earth and the moon that are more trafficked and more stable or sustainable that we can actually have that coordination amongst nations who are active and companies, which will be few at first, but as we keep hearing, we'll eventually grow or we hope that the economy will eventually grow there, but we have to start somewhere and perhaps science, safety, sustainability is where you start. If I may add on this, I think what is absolutely key is obviously that we discussed and not only among member states, but also with private entities and academia. And one very nice and interesting exercise that I had the pleasure to participate with Ian, actually, was the Hague Space Resource Governance Working Group, which was an effort over four years where we really had this interaction between different actors. And one thing that was always coming up there, so the intention was to build up building blocks for future international framework for space resource utilization. And again, by extension, I think also operations on the moon. And one thing that always came up was the notion of adaptive governance, saying that basically you cannot govern everything from the start, you have to evolve the framework depending on the actual need. I think that's also what's happening right now. For example, the realization that actually on the moon, there are only a few spots that are really interesting to be on and to build your lunar base. So obviously, even if you only have two players that go there, but I would add you, of course, have also private entities that want to go to these spots. So there is a very quick realization that you need an international mechanism to coordinate these operations just for safety reasons. Also, what we see is that now there are private entities really starting to go to the moon. We recently had ice base with the launch attempt. So also there, there's the realization, well, this is actually happening now, so we need to tackle it. And again, there are some fora, of course, corporals is like the big one, the very formal one, but there are so many other for us where these things are discussed, bring really, really variable building blocks for these future regulations. So again, yeah, the most important is that we have these discussions and actually a forum like this one is, of course, also a way to have these discussions. So there are a number of questions here in the chat about deconfliction of activities in space resources, but also just kind of other areas of lunar activity. I think we may get a chance to get a little more into those into the next panel, but I just wanted to mention that. We also have a, Kate, when you mentioned the Wolf Amendment, we have a question here about, will the Wolf Amendment hamper efforts by the U.S. and China to deconflict activities on the moon on a purely bilateral basis? Yes, it probably would be a barrier to that, but I think the path to that is through some of the multinational forums that Mattias, you're talking about, the ISAC, GECO, POS, others. So the Wolf Amendment is a thing that we definitely have to deal with when we're talking about the U.S.-China dynamic, but it's not a full stop barrier, right? So we've got a few minutes. I'm going to do what I'd like to do and ask a few very direct questions to a few individual panelists here, and so where did it go? So, Caitlin, the first one I see is here for you. From the 106th lunar missions you researched, are you seeing anything in there about end-of-life approaches and space debris mitigation, or is that level of detail not there? No, that level of detail is certainly not there. The trends that I'm seeing is the frequency, the timeline, the mission set, whether that is ice water science or if it's building transportation and logistics of building a sustainable way for us to get there and back. But there is not a lot of discussion on end-of-life, and maybe this does is a circumstance where it mimics how we were in the 60s, not quite thinking of it yet. We're just trying to get there, but we know better now, and I think that's something that, as we look at international and national frameworks for governing those actions to go back to the moon, extending that requirement or initiative to have a good end-of-life plan could, I think, really change the dynamics there. So, Asif, to you, there's a narrative that the Apollo program had massive public and political support. True. It didn't. I mean, it had support, but it wasn't massive in terms of public support. It did have massive congressional support and bipartisan until about 1966 or 67 when it peaked out the budgets. But in terms of popular support, we have extensive studies now that suggest roughly about half the American population were supportive Apollo. It depends on the way the question was asked. Do you support Americans going to the moon? They would say, oh, yeah, of course. Would you support Americans going to the moon if they spent X billion dollars? Then people start thinking about, well, I don't know about that. So I think as a core principle of exploration and spaceflight, I think Americans are generally positively predisposed to that. But when you factor in budgets and things like that, people start to think about it. Even though the percentage of the NASA budget as part of the overall budget is quite minuscule in terms of relative terms compared to many other things that we spend lots of money on. But I do think that, yeah, I think that, and I think the climate is very different now because, well, people are excited about a lot of different things, including private space. But I think ultimately NASA has a cultural value that is extremely hard to put money on. You see kids wearing NASA shirts everywhere and that sort of thing. It's incredible how that is a global brand in some ways as much as a global brand as anything else. And I think it's when NASA does something, people pay attention and that is a historical story. It's because it was set up in the 60s and it's still with us today. Yep, so history or the mythology persists and it builds up on itself in a way, right? And I do, I definitely agree with you. I'm fortunate to travel a fair bit and the NASA logo be at the worm or the meatball. Everywhere, everywhere, it's amazing, right? That's true. All right, so Matias Gnasky is in a personal capacity. Can, given going back to the US-China dynamic and the limitations of the Wolfram Amendment, can Europe act as a mediator or an intermediary between US and China to help us with some of this deconfliction? Well, I would hope so. Frankly speaking, at the moment, with the geopolitical context we are in, I have the feeling you have to choose sides, unfortunately. But speaking for Luxembourg, definitely at the moment, at least we don't have any issue with China, if I may so. I mean, we have a lot of Chinese banks, Chinese entities in Luxembourg and these relations work. And so indeed, I think in Europe, overall we have this willingness to be a sort of bridge and I hope this will be maintained for a while, even though it seems to get harder and harder. Yeah, and I would point out from my idealistic NGO perspective that that bridge doesn't necessarily have to be direct, right? So if you're talking to China over here and you're talking to the US over here, that perspective can be shared even through that kind of indirect link, right? Yeah. All right, Richard, a similar, slightly unfair question to you as well. So there's a question here that says, China has a rate of innovation that is perceived to be a lot faster than in the US or maybe other parts of the West, right? You're an innovation, your organization is interested in innovation generally. Is there anything that we can learn from the Chinese system of innovation to apply? Well, I mean, I guess one of the key things that we always see is where you've got a political environment where you can say, okay, we're all going left, then everyone goes left and things happen quickly. You know, I mean, that's sort of what we've made earlier. I mean, that's, let's say, one of the benefits, if we can call it that, of dictatorship. It's a characteristic that we saw in the 1960s with the Apollo program. So a clear direction, I mean, let's call it that rather than dictatorship. But I think if you have a vision, you have a particular objective in mind and you are focused on that, then you can make it happen. The sort of counter-argument to that, I suppose, is that in pursuing that objective, you take your eye off other objectives. And I think that the plurality of what's going on at the moment around the approaches to what happens on the Moon is actually a strength. Some of the things that are being attempted will wither, or perhaps it's simply not their moment in time. Others will succeed, and it's always hard to spot the winners ahead of time. It's very easy to recognize the path in hindsight. All right, thank you. So, all right, this is gonna go back now. Anybody is free to answer this. I'm not gonna pick on any one person. So let's accept, let's say, for the purpose of this question that this is a race. All right, what can the leading countries do to help make sure everybody participates and gets across that finish line? How do we make this a beneficial activity, even within the context of the small competitions that we see? I think from our perspective, at least, I'm not sure if we would qualify as a leading country here, but we definitely try to do our best to contribute. But what is very key is to explain why you're doing this, and also to explain to those countries that are not in the race, in the marathon. Why it's actually interesting also for them, what are the actual benefits? And that's where you have to make the link between the Sis Luna and Luna developments with what happens on Earth, and how all these things that we do on the Moon, in the end, also benefit our life on Earth. That's absolutely key. And of course, there are some, a lot of ideas on how you can bridge this. Of course, learning, for example, technology-wise, from certain developments that you do for the Moon that you then spin back to Earth and bring to other industries, actually bringing in other countries from the very start, allowing them to participate, to build capabilities, and that's really what you need to also get to buy in, especially in this international forum, for these very futuristic plans, or for what looks like futuristic plans to many of the other countries. I think you can also take positive characteristics from the nature of a race. Here we are in the US. The economy here is built on the principle of a race. It is woven into the fabric of the capitalist system that you have competing organizations vying to do things in the best way they can. Where that becomes destructive is where you allow monopolies to evolve out of that competition, and then that negates the competitive process. So competition is a good thing if it's exercised in the right context, and avoiding the more aggressive aspects of that, I think is the objective here. Let's keep a little bit of friendly competition, but just manage it. I mean, to your question, and I think the US's approach to the Artemis program is exactly that. We're not going alone. We're going with friends and allies and anyone who wants to join, and we're often offering a ride, which is a huge expense, and obviously a very technically challenging piece to even get to the moon, as we've seen. And so NASA, by offering that as a service to other countries and companies who are joining up, are bringing along their friends. I think about, as well, what my colleagues said about, there are just a couple places on the moon or in Cislin or space that are more advantageous than others for science or resourcing or stability. How do we keep these large but finite areas open for future countries, future missions, future organizations who want to join in and in space? I think of the ITU as kind of an analogous, like there is a finite resource of the Geo belt and how the ITU has allocated spectrum across and allocated in a system that includes non-spacefaring nations as well as the big spacefaring nations. And so how do we think about governance structures that protect that finite resource on the moon or in Cislin or space for future generations to come? And it's not a winner takes all, whoever gets their first approach. Yeah, so I mean, if we look at the planned landing sites for the Chinese series of lunar missions and the Artemis program, they look pretty darn similar, right? Which in the context of competition, you go, well, that might be a bad thing. But then you look at the scientific realities, the technical realities, and it's maybe not that surprising that the landing sites are similar, right? So a theme we've heard in multiple panels here is the importance of transparency, the importance of communication, and I think we can add coordination here. So that these nations are gonna pursue their scientific objective, they're gonna pursue their national project objectives. We need a way to share information and have a little bit of, not necessarily a collaboration, but coordination. I know coordination is the topic that for lunar has come up at Copius in a couple of senses. So we've got about two minutes left. So I wanna really quickly ask a yes-no answer here before giving a wrap up question. If the first space race was to the moon, shouldn't we be talking about the next space race being to Mars? Yes or no? It's a trick question. Ah! Sure, yeah. No. Yes. All right. Yes. Yeah, I agree as well. So it's not a lunar space race, folks. It's a Martian space race. All right. Really quickly to just wrap this up. As the audience walks out of the room, what do you want them to be thinking about is what in your viewpoint is the actual key drivers of this wave of interest in INSIS lunar activity? Just anybody go down the line and start. Sure, I mean the drivers I think are varied with different interests from different parties and we're going not just as whole of world but as all people and different companies and countries and to create this sustainable future both environmentally but also economically and all of the reasons that Matias announced earlier is we really have to work together internationally which as we know is very hard but I think we have a bit of a head start and maybe the urgency displayed by the traffic and the potential for SIS lunar space and the moon and just the kind of excitement and imagination that it inspires will help push us forward and that is a very optimistic perspective but I'm going to stick with it. For us, I would say the key drivers really showing how all of this benefits us and what is really the socioeconomic benefits of doing this. Of course, there's a lot of inspiration, science, exploration that's clear and that is a big driver but if we really want to develop an in-space SIS lunar economy we need to go beyond that and really work on business cases, on future markets, on actual business cases that make sense also for us and bring benefits to a much wider community. I think just as we inherit insanity from our children I think we inherit the moon from our great-grandkids and so I think we just need to go about this whole process in a way that our grandkids would look back on and unapproval. I think these are exciting times. They're a bit scary too but I do think that all this talk of sustainability is encouraging and hopeful so that's all I'll say. All right, well thank you to the panels, thank you to the audience. Thank you.