 Good morning everyone. My name is Dr. Brian Whedon. I serve as the Director of Program and Planning for Secure World Foundation and it's great to see everyone here today for this event. This is our first in-person DC luncheon event of this kind since COVID started and we're very thankful we were able to pull it together and thank all of you for coming out for it. Over the last few weeks many of us have been watching the news about the success of Artemis One with its pretty spectacular launch, its journey out around the moon and successful return yesterday. But at least for us policy nerds in the room the hardware is only part of what makes the Artemis program interesting. There's also the way that it's likely to shape space law and policy and international cooperation. Roughly two years ago, give or take a couple of months, the Artemis Accords were signed by initial set of eight countries which has since grown to 21. They represent an attempt to help shape some of these key areas of space law and policy that impact exploration and human space flight and we felt it was a good time to have an event focused on how the Accords originated, what's going on now and where they may be going in the future. A reminder that today's event is public and on the record we are recording it and plan to post it early next week. To kick things off today it's my absolute pleasure to introduce Pam Melroy, Deputy Administrator for NASA. Retired Air Force Colonel, former shuttle commander who is one of only a few people to have done a backflip in the space shuttle. Pam has also served in key leadership roles at NASA and an industry before now coming back to NASA served one of its top leadership and we're very thankful to have her coming to say a few words about the Artemis program, the Artemis Accords and where things are going. So Pam the floor is yours. She's agreed to take a few questions so at the end we'll go ahead and do that and I'll walk to that process. Thank you. Yeah this always happens to me. I want to start out by thanking the Secure World Foundation and and Brian of course for hosting this event. It is exciting. It is very exciting for us and I also feel like it's really important to acknowledge Mike Gold and former administrator Jim Bridenstine as well as a tremendous group of people inside NASA but also at the State Department for what it took to get the Artemis Accords going. I know it was a massive effort and it's just transformational so really appreciate that. So I'm starting to feel kind of real now that we have Orion back and we've met our major test objectives. There's more work to be done obviously but I think you know this is it's it feels really critical that we continue this work. It was not ahead of time. It's made barely be in time for having started this effort. So I think I just have to make a comment about the landing and about the mission. You know I had an interesting experience as a shuttle astronaut building the space station. Every single time we added a new piece to the station there was suddenly a new view right. There was a new angle that we were looking at the station looking at the shuttle. There were new camera locations and things like that and it just felt every single time we flew an assembly flight that we had a new view of the station and it was just kind of exciting. It was like wow not only is this thing growing but it was like we had a new lens to look through and as Kathy Kerner the deputy in ESD said recently the moon may not have changed a lot in the 50 years since we've been there. We have changed tremendously and I think there's something amazing about the live from the moon you know on the TV and actually seeing the pictures that we're seeing real time. It just changes everything. I mean yes we have pictures of the moon. We have pictures of the moon but there's something very different about seeing the spacecraft in it about seeing the spacecraft in it when you see earth rise you know such a famous and transformational moment. So the Artemis accords of course were inspired by the Artemis missions but they involve obviously a lot of exploration and science activities. Something that's really important to us is a major difference with Artemis. Well a couple of major differences I think you're aware of. The first one is that science is really front and center and we're working hard to make sure that that's the case. In addition to that because our intent is to go deeper into the solar system with humans to do science and exploration, we really have to think about infrastructure. The return on investment for science gets smaller and smaller the shorter duration you stay at your destination. We have to figure out how to have people live and work for long periods of time. If you look at what we did with Space Shuttle and Space Station it was exactly the same idea. We would get so much more science if we could have a permanent human presence and the same thing is true. It has the added benefit of course bringing our commercial partners along with us. So in the context of this we and the other original signatories of the Artemis accords came together to think about that next era of space exploration and make sure that it was being implemented in accordance with the fundamental principles of responsible behavior. Of course based on the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and other existing international regimes. I guess for me something that I say a lot and I say it everywhere is that how we go is as important as what we do because we recognize that we are setting precedents. So the potential to set precedents that set us send us in a direction that we don't want to go. It's just it's too much of a risk. We really really have to be thinking in very practical matters about what we're doing. We're entering a new frontier. We see that and commercial is pushing as hard as they can and they're going to move really fast. So there is an obligation for us to think this through. We need a roadmap whose principles we can agree on which facilitates dialogue, flexibility, help us devise solutions when we come across some of those things that we didn't predict. We want as many nations as possible to bring their voice to that discussion. As I have often remarked to my international friends, it does not cost anything to be a leader in space policy. What matters is your experience, your thought process and a diversity of perspective. The current diversity of the signatories of the accords gives you a sense of how we are trying to pull that together and how much interest there is across the world. So much has actually happened since the first original eight signatories signed the Artemis Accords in October of 2020. While an additional 13 nations have signed since that time with more to come in the very near future, very near future, we've also begun to think about the important business of how do we implement those key accords principles. We had a lot of very interesting conversations with our international partners to ensure that we would have the flexibility to leave implementation as future activity that we would all work on together and that was very important. This is my first opportunity to speak in detail about progress on the Artemis Accords implementation since we held our first face to face meeting with signatories on the margins of the International Astronautical Congress in Paris last September. It was really important to us that this be a fully inclusive event. It was really important that we were not the chair of this event, and instead we co-chaired with Brazil and with France, and it was held at the heads of agencies level. It was really extraordinary. There was participation of 19 of 21 signatories, and I took notes and of the 19 that were there, 17 spoke and actively contributed to the conversation significantly. So that's amazing. So of course there's only so much you can get done in 90 minutes, but the energy in the room and in the discussion was palpable. So couple things I noticed. First it was really clear that the community of Accord signatories thinks that it's urgent to define how we're going to explore, and we want to assure that we're going to do so in a way that's safe, responsible, and equitable. That came up as a repeating theme. Taking into account the views not only of spacefaring nations today, but those who have yet to develop that capability and will want to have that opportunity in the future. So we agreed that discussions on implementing the Accords are incredibly important, and they're just beginning and we need to make progress. Second there was general consensus on several priorities that we should focus on as a community with two important near term actions. The first was to discuss how we can de-conflict activities on the moon and ensure the safety of humans and spacecraft that will be working in close proximity. And the second was to explore how to identify opportunities for emerging space actors, help them understand what the importance of the Artemis Accords is, and to ensure that the early activities that we do and agreements we make by more established spacefaring nations don't preclude later entrance. So that was a very, very powerful theme that we heard over and over. On a longer term basis, we identified the need to define how best to utilize multilateral global fora such as UN copious to advance the principles espoused in the Accords, building on the lessons and operational expertise developed by the Accord signatories. And the second thing was to monitor progress within each country. It's important to develop appropriate domestic regulations and oversight for their respective commercial actors and to synchronize those regimes where possible. So that was a really interesting conversation about what the limits of these types of agreements that we make recognizing that each nation state has the right to develop its own regulatory regime, but the importance of harmonizing it. So I just wanted to restate it because I thought that was absolutely fascinating. And just some astoundingly articulate other members of this member states just to, I think some of the participants didn't fully appreciate the difference. And then others are just like really got it, but we all went there together. So to help shed some light, particularly on the importance of the near term discussions about deconflicting activities. Earlier this year, I asked our office of technology, policy and strategy to do an internal analysis of upcoming lunar landing and operations activities planned around the world. And the results of this study were released last fall. The report noted that within the next four years, the global community is likely to launch at least 22 lunar surface missions, half of which will occur in the moon's South Polar region. So that's a lot. And these are sure to be very complex missions. They may not all stay on the schedule that they're on. Some will have technical challenges. But each one of them has the potential to introduce unintended interference with other activities either with each other or those following, including landing zones, surface operations, transit and RFI interference. So this study really helped illuminate the importance of advancing the Artemis Accords and the principle of deconfliction of activities with some considerations of the kinds of things that we should be talking about in the concept of a safety zone. So just because I'm technical and I can't stand talking policy this long without squeezing something in, I'm going to do it. So I think one of the things that I found very fascinating technically is the lack of science underpinnings that we have particularly around plume surface interaction or PSI because we have to have an acronym for everything. I think just we're just beginning to understand how far away particles can actually travel in that light gravity environment. And the question of migration of particles. And so you might think, Hey, this is my lander, there's no plants or animals. I've, you know, I'm using, I don't know, some chemical. And then I'm going to hit and then there's going to be particles that go flying all over the place. And they may stay essentially, well, airborne, there's no air, but it would they'll stay above the surface for periods of time and actually can travel a long way. We don't have the science underpinnings around that. So if we're really going to get serious about hazards and deconfliction, we have got to understand this better. And in fact, I brought this up to at a meeting of our clips providers recently to discuss, Hey, maybe we should be, you know, trying to understand the science about this and collecting data. So there you go, my technical commercial for a moment. As we and our Artemis Accords partners continue this important work of understanding how best to implement the Accords, we'll be looking not just at the ideas, but also at the operational experience that key partners such as those joining us today, Kinesse and Jackson and many others can bring to bear, because that operational experience is actually going to ground us in the technical truth. Because we agree is, as I mentioned about how we're going to explore is just as important as what we do. I'm grateful that we've had so much success in extending the principles of the Artemis Accords to so many signatories thus far. And I'm very hopeful that we've started an important dialogue that's sure to impact the work we do for generations to come. I truly believe we are at a pivot point. And as we continue this dialogue, form working groups with the Artemis Accords partners, we welcome input from the broader space community, including how we can bring non state actors involved in the exploration of the moon. So I spend a lot of time thinking about this with our clips providers, commercial and nonprofit entities, by the way, into alignment with the spirit of the Artemis Accords and how we continue to propagate those really important foundational principles. So there's a lot of work we have left to do, but I'm looking forward to making progress in this endeavor because having a sustainable environment for the future is absolutely critical. It will set the path of humanity on one path or another. And if we do it right, we can be very thoughtful about what we're doing. So I welcome your questions. So we do have some time for questions. I actually would like to ask something. Please raise your hand. When the mic comes to you, please identify who you are, affiliation, and please frame it in the form of a question. So, Jeff. Hi, Jeff, House of Space News. So working ahead, what's the path forward for getting some output from these working groups, developing documents, and another face to face meeting? Yeah, thanks, Jeff. I will just tell you this was another very interesting conversation that we had with the signatories to remind everyone that it's one thing to work with our Space Agency partners, Space Agency to Space Agency. It's really important to understand that the Artemis Accords is a political commitment, which means that we have to engage at a different level. And for us, that means the State Department. So it's really important that we are partnered well with the State Department and work together to set the priorities for this. There's a real appetite for it. I think we've had a lot going on with Artemis. And our partners have since that, too. But I believe in the new year is when we will start to form working groups. And I'll just emphasize, again, it's really important. I mean, I know that NASA is going to want to be engaged on those working groups, but we will not be chairing all of them. We need to pick subjects that I think are most meaningful and most exciting. And we've got a few. I named a couple, but I think there's a few other options out there and hope to make progress next year. Hi, Chris Davenport from the Washington Post. Congratulations on a great Artemis one mission that was really exciting to watch and to cover. And in typical newspaper reporter fashion, well, you know, what have you done for us lately? I just wonder if you could give us a quick update on Starship. The administrator was asked about this yesterday and it gave us a little bit, but I just wonder if you can build upon that any updates in terms of the schedule when you, you know, have things are going. Thanks so much. Yeah, I had the opportunity to go out to Boca Chica and spend the day out there a couple of weeks ago and got a got a pretty good sense of where they're going. They are in a hardware rich environment. Let's put it this way. They are ready to test. They do have some things that they have to finish before they can test. And that's a very important reason. You know, Gwen is really focused on doing that, but it was, you know, it was amazing to see their production line. They have a lot of hardware. So I think once they can sort some things out, I'll just make another observation, which is, and I've known this forever since I was at the, you know, well, not forever, since I was at the FAA, how hard it is to develop a new location to launch rockets from. Safety is everything. And so when there's so much precedence, so much work that's gone in before places like, you know, the range and all the capabilities, it is, it's very challenging to set up a new location. And I think they're just experiencing some of those things. But, you know, we, we're, you know, they're ready to go test. And I think they've got the design ready to go do some serious hardware testing. And they're beyond the, we're going to probably blow up the pad phase. So Marsha Smith, Space Policy Online.com. Could you talk a bit about what you're doing to get other countries to sign on to the accords? Is the US proactively going out and talking to countries, especially the ones that are planning to launch to the moon? Or are you waiting for countries to come to you? And you talked about the challenge of getting the non-state actors on board, the commercial companies, etc. What's going on in that regard? Yeah, great questions, Marsha. Thank you. You know, I think America's leadership is very important. At the same time, we just need to recognize that this is not about the US telling everybody what to do. That's not what this is about. One of the things that I found really interesting at the Accord signatories discussion was how many people wanted to talk about how to communicate to their regional partners, why the Artemis Accords was important, which is wonderful. And in fact, I have to give kudos to Canada, Lisa Campbell, the head of the Canadian Space Agency. She is very, very active. She brings this up and as near as I can tell any international engagement that she has. So we certainly bring it up and we have meetings. We've got like 150 agreements around the world and, you know, 67 countries or something along that lines. And, you know, when we have meetings, we certainly raise it as a, hey, are you interested in talking about this? But it's, it's, I think it's more important that it be recognized as a multilateral event. And so it's extremely important that all the signatories feel that it's important to bring people along. As far as the commercial piece, we have taken the actions to have some discussions. We had a clips round table that we held recently and this subject came up of the Artemis Accords and we had a, we had a pretty good dialogue. I think this is something that the, there's a couple of things going on, right? One of them is the government has to decide who's got on orbit authority. And we've been waiting for that for a while. So I think we have some, some activity in that area. Certainly, Tarak has promised that the space council is very interested in this. And I only ask him about it about every other week. So how it's going? Try not to bug him too much. So I think there is a lot of interest in activity around that. That will help. But just having a dialogue with our providers, you know, clips is just really different than our commercial crew, which was deeply enmeshed because we had a certification process. And so it's clips is a lot more hands off. So you know, we have alerted those companies that they need to be thinking about international treaties and obligations and things like that. So thanks. Hi there. My name is Stacy Moore. And I am an official NASA fangirl. So quite stashed up to be in the present presence of an actual astronaut. No one else here is. I was so glad to hear you mentioned responsible behavior, considering the US tradition of protecting natural cherished entities from human alteration. And the fact that the moon is considered sacred to many cultures around the world. I was wondering if there are any cultural or environmental advisors being consulted as part of the Artemis project and what measures in general being taken to make sure that we afford the lunar environment, the same protections we get the Grand Canyon say. Thank you. It's so fascinating. You know, when you start talking about responsible use and protection of the environment, people are like, yeah, but they don't have any air or plants or animals. So how hard can this be? Oh, it's hard. I think there's, you know, the aspect of, well, what if there is a Grand Canyon, some of the most beautiful place on the surface of the moon? Don't we care about protecting that? Yes. But then you add in the religious and the cultural significance. It's really, really important. But it's also really important that we don't do this in a way that looks like we're saying, I'm fencing this off because this is where Apollo 11 landed. So it has historical significance and don't get within 100 kilometers of it. You know, we need to have kind of a, we need to, we do need to consult people. And we talked a little bit about this. There's such a robust heritage of that here on Earth where people think about preservation. And so I can just tell you, I think, I think we have to connect with those people. And I'm thinking at the global level like the UNESCO World Heritage Site kind of level, so that again, everybody should have the opportunity to bring their lens to bear on what that responsible use and that protection needs to be. We should be deciding this as a human race with the best experience that we've got. So that's actually one of the subjects worth thinking about having a working group on potentially. There are other things that feel kind of more like a crisis like in the near term, like the harmful interference and the protection, you know, of activities that might happen next year. But it is on the list. So thank you for bringing it up. Hi, Pam. Chris Constauder, XXL Space Insurance. There's been a lot of talk lately about mission authorization. And I'm wondering if that's a component of the discussions that the parties are having around the Artemis Accords. Is that something that you're encouraging other signatories to work on? And how do you see NASA helping in that process? Yeah, thanks so much, Chris. I appreciate that. I think that the U.S., as probably most people would agree, have been out ahead, Commercial Space Launch Act, the regulations. We have a lot of maturity and are relatively speaking globally in our commercial space law and our commercial space regulations, which means a lot of people come to the FAA and ask for help and advice when they're standing up their own regimes. It is interesting to me, though, I don't think it's actually going to stay that way. It's really clear to me that it's not going to stay that way. So what we talked about at the signatories event was harmonization. That's really important. We talk about interoperability as it refers to hardware. There's interoperability when it comes to laws and regulations as well. How do you not get off of it? Some of this is just safety-based. The hardware stuff is really a no-brainer. Hey, if you can't access somebody else's airlock to save somebody, that doesn't make any sense, that kind of stuff. But I think if we're not careful, we're going to end up in a place where we may be something that you do see here, even in the United States, which is people trying to regulate each other out of business. They're trying to get preferential treatment for their business model that then disadvantages other businesses. So that's why we use the word harmonization, because I think it's important to recognize that we don't want that kind of behavior, but we also need to allow each country their autonomy. It's a tough problem. One more. All right. Nobody can follow Chris. Please join me in thanking Frank. We're now going to turn to our second speaker, Mr. Sean Fuller, who serves as the Gateway International Partner Manager for NASA. In that role, he's been responsible for the technical and programmatic integration of NASA's Gateway International Partners. Sean has had a long career at NASA working in human space flight, including establishing operational interfaces with international partners. We've asked him here today to talk a little bit of how the Gateway interacts with both the Artemis program and the Accord. So Sean, floor is yours. Well, thank you, Brian. And good afternoon, everyone. It's my pleasure to come here today and talk to you, and certainly on the heels of a wonderfully successful Artemis One mission and just hats off to the teams here in the U.S. and really around the world that made that happen. And it's great to see that first step. We've got a lot more following on after that. And the ball is certainly rolling, as I say, the train has left the station. It's a great place to be in and looking ahead to the future. And have the pleasure today to talk to you about some of that and how we're taking the Artemis Accords that we've been built on and standing really on the shoulders of the giants that helped make that happen. As Pam pointed out, some of those key folks enable us in a gateway world and our agreements to actually put that into action and be moving ahead, starting with the hardware, to make this a reality. So we're celebrating two years and a couple months worth of Artemis Accords, signing that with the first eight and enrolling. And very shortly after that, on the heels of that, two years ago this month, we signed our final agreements for the initial international partnership of Gateway, factoring in those Artemis Accords. And just a hats off to some of the folks here in the room that made that happen, Mike, when he wore a little different lapel pin there. I think Karen as well and Chris and Gabriel and I see some of our international partner colleagues as well. We'll hear a little later from Asami and Sylvie also that helped us all as a partnership come together in developing these agreements for Gateway with the vision of the future, not only lunar exploration but looking beyond as we like to say Moon to Mars and stepping from our capabilities at the Moon and building it out and on to Mars. And so as part of those agreements of Gateway that have established that partnership, we included many of those elements and the principles of the Artemis Accords that are now in our fabric in what we're doing, what I do on a daily basis with the teams around the world in developing Gateway. Starting with certainly the peaceful purposes for it. We're taking that experience we have, a lot of wonderful experience with many of our partners on ISS, expanding that on to Gateway, doing that for all of humanity. It's opening up new opportunities for many of us to see that opportunity in CIS lunar space and use it as a launching pad off to the future as well. Along with that, we talk, Pam talked a little bit about interoperability standards. We actually started those about four or five years ago and have developed interoperability standards. We have nine different standards that we adhere to in the Gateway program but then throughout Artemis that define that interoperation at the interface level. Requirements that we flow down into Gateway as we develop the modules as well but define that and also enable us one of the other very important aspects of the Artemis Accords of emergency crew rescue capabilities. When you define those interfaces now and other vehicles are developed with that in mind, you have that interoperability there. So from a Gateway standpoint, we learned a lot and I always like to draw corollaries to ISS. You know, when we first launched ISS, I don't think any of us would have predicted what it looks like today and the opportunities it's had and new partnerships there and new opportunities commercial and international partners. But doing that and doing that by standards now and utilizing that as part of the Artemis Accords is other nations are developing capabilities with that interoperability there. It can certainly play in and factor in the things like Gateway and the other elements of Artemis as well. As we look at it, one of the key aspects of course as well is utilization. We're gonna have Gateway as a platform that enables that sustainable crewed exploration to the lunar surface and on the Mars in the future as well but we're also gonna be doing a lot of utilization all the time there and as Pam talked about it, it's a great opportunity for us. We're actually gonna start on Gateway with that utilization at the first element launch. We have utilization experiments from NASA, from our European colleagues, from our Japanese colleagues, looking at radiation environments internal and external on Gateway. We have a wonderful dust sensor from our Japan colleagues. Pam talked about the dust on a surface. Well, you kind of look at what are you transporting up as well? What is that doing to outside of your vehicle? Some mechanisms and interfaces and so that's one of our early utilization experiments, but that's not just for us and just for that partnership. And hearing to those Artemis accord principles and standards, that data is gonna be open and available. And so one of our guiding principles and agreements within the partnership of Gateway for utilization is we will have that data and have it available within six months out to the public once we wrap that data together. Now we'll say there's a little caveat on that because when you talk about human research, a lot of times that gets into personally identifiable. We'll certainly be doing human research on Gateway, but that data will take a little bit longer for the bit that can be identified to particular crew members, but eventually that will get in the realm as well of publicly available research data really that benefits all of us. And so we take all those key principles from the Artemis Accords, we build them into our Gateway agreements that we have now that's resulting in the work and the hardware that's being produced. And so as a program guy, I love coming up here and talking about the agreements, but I'd feel remiss if I didn't give you a little peek into the hardware that's being built and then gonna be flying in space as well. So we have across NASA, the first couple of elements, the power and propulsion element, that's being built in California as we speak by Maxar, built after a 1300 bus. And so we have a central cylinder that's kind of the central section of it. That's been manufactured starting to do the additional components out of it, doing some testing for the early, or for the thrusters, both the six kilowatt and 12 kilowatt, very large electric propulsion thrusters, all that's progressing. The second half of the first element of Gateway is called the Halo Habitational Logistics Outpost. We're just finishing the manufacturing that primary structure in Italy for Northrop Grumman and it'll be sent to the US here, later part, the middle part of next year and a few months to continue that outfitting. And also as we add into it, like I said, this is part of a partnership that first launch is made possible by several key elements, power systems, battery systems for our Japan colleagues, a lunar communication systems from ESA that will communicate between the surface up through Gateway and back down to Earth. Again, using those interoperability standards, which means it enables others in that vicinity for that communication system. So it makes it a very open architecture and possibilities out there. And then of course our colleagues in Canada with the robotic interfaces that enables that early science. And so around the partnership, we have hardware that's being built and manufactured and moving ahead to that first launch. Looking forward to seeing that, the launch and will take us about a year to spiral out into our NRHO orbit, which is a new unique orbit. And again, I can relay that back to the Artemis Accords and some of the principles in there. You know, it's a nice pristine orbit now. There's one thing in NRHO orbit, Capstone, was a CubeSat that launched a while ago and entered orbit about a month ago. Helps us kind of understand it. So I kind of think of it like the luster of new snow. We don't get that in Houston, but you see that here in Washington. Before anybody steps on it, it's nice and clean. That's kind of what that orbit is. It's nice and clean. It's got one object in it. We've learned a lot from low-earth orbit. We first started flying ISS and back in my career, we rarely had to worry about a debris avoidance maneuver or something entering the orbit that we had to watch out for. Now it's nearly a weekly occurrence. And so part of our principles that we carry forward, again, branching out of Artemis Accords and looking into our agreements and how do we produce and operate gateway is minimizing and eliminating really that orbital debris. And so one of the things that we have, of course, a spacecraft, you need a logistics vehicle to help support that, to bring the supplies for the crew, both operating at gateway and then down to the lunar surface. And so baked into that is that operations philosophy and agreements on how we bring it up, we contain all of our trash within the vehicle, don't let anything escape externally or internally and then send the vehicle off into a safe disposable heliocentric orbit that stays away from us, doesn't pollute the cis-lunar environment. And so again, taking those and hearing to those principles of the Artemis Accords and making that possible in the fabric of what we do. And so with that, we're also certainly many other elements across Skateway, our European colleagues and Japanese colleagues with the IHED module that just started its welding in Italy as well, followed on by a refueling module from our European colleagues in its design phases along with Canada arm three. And so really that all the elements, I would tell you those first elements of Gateway on contract, hardware being built. But then I look to the future and I really think this is one of the beauties of the Artemis Accords is if I look at Gateway, that's not a complete Gateway. We also need a crew and science airlock for it. We see spacewalks that happen on ISS frequently, the robotic arm that takes science inside and outside. You don't need the crew time to do that. So I talked a bit about Gateway and it's crew there 30 to 60 days a year, but all those times outside of it and so an airlock. And so that's one of the components. It's a hardware component of Gateway, but it's an opportunity in the future for a new NASA partner to come along and join as a participant with our partners on Gateway. And so the Artemis Accords kind of lays that out. It sets a foundation for the nations that have signed on to it, that look at that, we have a common understanding and a basis for that and really provides an opportunity for such a new partner to join. I'm happy to say that we're certainly in very active negotiations there and hopefully in a handful of months, we'll hear about a new NASA partner from the Artemis Accords that are joining us and joining Gateway, joining with our other partners as a participant and helping make Gateway happen and really set that up for the future. And so with that partnership, building off the Artemis Accords, we're gonna have Gateway as that location, not only for the crews that come and go down to the surface, an open architecture interoperability standards, it allows it to grow from there, both for CIS Lunar, but then we also have that eye ahead to the future as a stepping stone building off of that to go to Mars as well. And so with that, and with the Artemis Accords, we kind of build that together and like at NASA, we talk about Artemis, we like to say we go together. And so we take that, we take that vision, we build it together on Gateway and we go together, Gateway and a surface and then beyond that to Mars as well. So again, just a wrap up, really happy to be here to see what's happening within Gateway, the implementation of the Artemis Accords and it's helping make the future happen. Looking forward to the day that we see the great images from Orion that's gone, brought crew, crew going down to the surface and looking back on our Earth and giving us that perspective, nothing like getting humanized there. So thank you. I owe Pam, you gave them all to her. All right, if I can invite the panel to come up and join me for the next part of this. Okay, moving on to part three. In this discussion, we hope to pick up on some of the themes that both Pam and Sean brought up in their opening remarks and also dig a little more detail on some of the history and some of what's going on currently and hopefully some of the plans for the future. And I'm very thankful today to have be joined by some of the people who are actually making this work and who actually helped build the Accords who are doing active negotiations and who are involved in some of these activities. So going from my right down to the table, we have Mike Gold who currently serves as Chief Growth Officer at Redwire where he leads their business development marketing. But for this conversation, as was mentioned, what's really important is his prior posting at NASA which was the triple threat, Associate Administrator for Space Policy and Partnerships, Acting Associate Administrator of the International Interagency Relationships and Senior Advisor of the Administrator for International Legal Affairs. Did I miss anything? No, you need a bigger car. Something's like Redwire, I have a short title now. And in those roles, he played a founding role in the creation of the Accords, we'll get to in a minute here. So next to him is Christina Lescek, Foreign Service Officer with the Office of Space Affairs in the Department of State and she's stepping in this morning for Valda who unfortunately was able to make it. So we're very thankful that Christina for doing so at very short notice. In her role, she works on international, she has background in international policy, real estate and startup experience. In her role, the State Department, she works as a Foreign Service Officer, Area Management Officer and a Financial Economist and she currently heads up public outreach on the art and supports within the State Department's Office of Outer Space Affairs. So next to her, we have Dr. Masami Onoda, Director of the JAXA Washington DC Office, representing the Japanese Space Agency in the Americas. Masami has extensive experience in international affairs across a wide range of space activities, including remote sensing and space applications. And finally on the end, we have Nicholas Mobert, representative of CNES, the French Space Agency and Space Counselor to the French Embassy in the United States. He too has a wide range of experience across multiple space sectors, including the European Space Port in French Guiana and the Galileo program. So, Mike, I'll start with you. Can you recap for us what the original intent was with the Artemis Accords and what did you hope to achieve at the time? What kind of goals were you talking about? This. This is what I hope to achieve. This moment, a successful launch of Artemis One. There's beautiful pictures from Orion. Thank you, Redwire. There were our cameras there. But this moment, I could not have asked for anything more of the success of the program and the success of the Accords, which was actually the purpose of what we wanted to accomplish. That, you've heard me say before, the challenge with Beyond Leo Human Space Flight at NASA was that failure wasn't just an option, it was a certainty. NASA has failed to implement a Beyond Leo Human Space Flight program since Apollo. Every time there was a partisan shift in administration, different plan, it failed. And with Artemis, we really had one last shot. And I feared that without Artemis, America would never lead a global Beyond Leo Human Space Flight Coalition again. Yet here we are, now going from one partisan administration to another successfully and sustainably. And boy, did it take a village. And Pam was very kind in thanking me, but then at Department of State, Gabriel Swinney. I think it was the first person I called about the Accords. You know, I was going into NASA. Fellow Star Trek fan, of course, Artemis Accords. And I'll leave you reporters to figure out the Star Trek context. Fellow Red Sox fan, Jonathan Margolis over at Department of State. And before we could unite the world, we needed to unite with state. And that partnership between NASA and Department of State was absolutely vital to the success of the Accords and getting through the C175 process, which is the scariest terms I've ever heard. But, you know, Karen Feldstein, the whole team, Neil, I see in the audience, he was the original note taker with the Accords. Sean, you know, we kind of got there and we got some stories with Gateway. If it wasn't for Sean, and then the international partners, the Misami and Nicholas, and Nicholas in particular with Gateway. I mean, it took all of us, even you in the media, you know, everyone helped to accomplish what I think is an incredible and lofty goal. So the sustainability was the first part that we knew to get Artemis to another administration. And Jim, you know, was saying he needed two things, bipartisanship, which Jim was definitely up for. And he spent more time talking Democrats needed Republicans. He did an amazing job bringing this country together. And Jim was the only person who had Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence on the same page. He should get a Nobel Peace Prize for that. And then we knew that international was a vital aspect to the continuity and sustainability of Artemis. That if you look at the International Space Station and start contrast to our beyond Leo human spaceflight programs, the ISS had become the crown jewel and the foundation of human spaceflight why had it lasted so long versus beyond Leo international? It was the international aspect. So we knew that we needed the accords to do that. And then next, diversity. You know, we talk about diversity as a moral thing and it certainly is morally correct. But if you want to solve a problem, a more diverse group is going to be better than a homogenous one. And bringing the world together, so many different cultures, so many different ideas to tackle a problem, you will ultimately be more successful. So there are substantive mission oriented reasons to have this global coalition for the diversity of thought and capability and funding that it's able to bring. So that was incredibly important to us. And then finally, the norms of behavior that as Pam says, and you know, don't forget that when Pam was deputy associate administrator of the FAAST, she found a DARPA confers as well. So she's no newbie when it comes to policy. And the fact that we had this opportunity of going back to the moon was so popular in the international community to then transition that enthusiasm to create norms behavior, transparency, interoperability, avoiding harmful interference. So much of what we've talked about today, it was just an inflection point that we had to take advantage of to build a better future and one that we could be proud of. And I'll just close by saying that the journey of Artemis is to the moon and Mars but the destination of the accords is peace and prosperity. I almost spoke like a diplomat. Good job, Mike. So picking up from that, Christine, as we mentioned earlier, there was the original group of eight and there's been 13 more that have come on board and there's more discussions that are going on. So can you talk from the State Department's perspective, what has that process been of expanding the accords of socializing, of doing the kind of public engagement that Pam talked about earlier? Well, thank you, Brian. And thank you to the Easter Care World Foundation. I am here representing the Office of Space Affairs for my office director, Volta Vic Manis Keller, who unfortunately could not attend today. So when we think about international engagement and international cooperation, like the NASA Deputy Administrator mentioned, we don't do it alone. And I work as my office's lead for the Artemis Accords and together with NASA's Office of International Relations and, sorry, of NASA's Office of International and Interagency Relations. I always get that acronym wrong. We co-lead on the Artemis Accords for the U.S. government and so we engage prospective signatories and we engage on Artemis Accords activities. But to better answer your question regarding the role of the State Department and specifically the process, the process in many ways is classic diplomacy. So that means communication with governments. It means fostering peaceful cooperation between state actors. And this, for our office, extends to the civil space domain. And while we're not technical experts, we work heavily with NASA hand in hand to speak about the Artemis Accords with our U.S. embassies overseas as well as with our foreign counterparts, which includes space agencies as well as foreign missions. And much of this work has involved organized briefings to explain what the Artemis Accords are and what they're not. And we emphasize in our briefings that they are a whole of government process. So as the NASA Deputy Administrator mentioned, the Artemis Accords are a high-level political commitment. So what that means is that they are not a bilateral agreement with the United States. They're not a binding treaty. There's no exchange of funds. And we find that having representatives from the government as well as space agencies incredibly important in when we discuss what it means to sign the Artemis Accords. And another thing that we emphasize is that the United States is not the gatekeeper of the Artemis Accords. So the Artemis Accords belong to all signatories. We have Japan, we have France here today, and that is a really important message that we want to relay to prospective signatories. We also continue to encourage all responsible space fairing nations to sign the Artemis Accords. And we also encourage countries that are just developing their space sector to also consider signing the Artemis Accords. We stress that interested countries do not need to come to the table with existing space capabilities or even near-term plans to contribute to Artemis. We find this opens the conversation up to a much more diverse group. And we're proud of the 21 signatories that have signed the Artemis Accords and we look forward to more joining very soon. So the State Department and our role, we also play a critical role in international forums such as the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, so copious. Including what we did was in December 2020, we submitted the text of the Artemis Accords to copious or to the UN for official distribution to all UN member states. And this was important as one of the principles of the Artemis Accords stresses transparency. And so we wanted to be transparent and allow for conversations and discussions to take place in international settings such as copious. And I'll just end here. I wanna stress that copious remains the preeminent UN forum for state discussions on issues related to international space cooperation. And our work with Artemis Accords signatories is not intended to bypass copious, but instead is meant to contribute to the work of copious. Thank you. Thank you. I think we'll pick up on a couple of those things later on. Masama, I'll turn to you. And if we talked about, Japan was one of the original signatories of the Accords. And from the JAXA perspective, what did your agency find important about them? What was JAXA's motivation in supporting the Japanese government to participate in the Accords? So thanks, Brian, for having us here with all the colleagues. It's such a nice time also to celebrate and come together. As I look back, when we signed this, it was 2020, October. And it was in the midst of COVID, right? And I was most of the negotiations back in Japan, actually. Mike would call me at my apartment in Japan and we would talk, just like we were here. And we got so much done through that period. It was also not just COVID, but it was a time that we were going into, well, you were going into transition. A transition, one of the most, I would say, dynamic ones that I know of. And I thought those two things really were important in what we did because we really nailed what we were supposed to do together as an international community. And I think all the international partners shared that sense that we have to go through this, get this done, get this Artemis program going. So that was a very broad motivation. But on the other hand, we work here. JAXA has its own palace in Pennsylvania, on Pennsylvania. But also we work very close to the embassy. I have Koji-san and Narita-san from the Japan embassy here. Tani-san, my colleague, is here too. And I'm just here as the most talkative woman from Japan. But really, we worked in tandem with the government. The signatory was the government, our ministers. But JAXA, as JAXA, we found the Artemis Accords very important, of course, to push forward our space programs, to have an environment where it will be more, of course, sustainable, safe, responsible, also predictable, stable for us to carry out our space programs, in other words, that will facilitate our space programs. And the Accords would promote such, building such an environment on the moon and beyond. That was what we thought the Artemis Accords could achieve. And our contribution to Gateway, as Sean kindly pointed out, we have initial components on Halo, we have cooperation with ESA on IHAB. And of course, we will go on to the moon surface with Pinpoint Landing Slim, the Lunar Polar Exploration Mission with Isro. Colonel is not here today, maybe. Oh, yes, he is. So with the Indian Space Agency and MMX, of course, so many partners, and also with a pressurized rover at the end of the 2020s, HTVX and X Gateway G that we hope to bring our transportation capabilities for lunar activities as well. So all of these we want to carry out in the sustainable, safe manner and responsible manner as much as we can. So we are very much looking forward to this international collaboration. Great, thank you. And Nicholas, turn to you. France is one of the countries that has been part of the second bigger group of countries that have joined since the initial group. So actually the same question. What did Canas and France in general find a port about the Accords? What was the motivation to participate? Thank you, Brian. Good afternoon, everyone. So yes, you pointed out, we took our time in France to really figure out the interest in signing. And as Mike was saying, first challenge was to work between NASA and the US. I had to convince four different ministers working with space in France, where Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Research Innovation, of Economy and of Defense. So all of our ministers were working in the assessing, effectively, the Artemis Accord. And in fact, we had to answer several questions, first, effectively, to confirm that the momentum in exploration was a reality. It was in the middle of a change of the administration. I think for the first time, you mentioned the exploration program hardly survived, you know, the shift in the administration usually. But now, we confirmed after the election, the chair administration, that it was the case. Also, we had to assess political impact and scope of the Accords. Many in France, we already advocate of multilateralism. And initially, there was this fear or criticism about, you know, called Artemis Accord, dealing with a principle to deal with activities in outer space in general. So we had to figure out that it was not against or interfering with the multilateral forum. And you clarify that this is not the case. The nature, as well, of the Accord, especially we took time to figure out it was not legally binding for us. It was important to stress that our commitment to the Accords doesn't prevent us to still partner with other partners that are not signatories of the Accord. And finally, also the content, and perhaps we can discuss this a bit in detail further, you know, to assess the compliance to the outer space treaty when we talk about safety zones or about in-situ resource utilization. So there are things that we are analyzing carefully. So, but we joined, finally, and after many discussion and fruitful meetings. And for many reasons, but perhaps two of them first, because, effectively, there is a huge momentum in exploration. And we want to be part of it, of course. You know, France has always been on the forefront of space and exploration. And especially this year, so there is a huge momentum, you know, in our French-U.S. corporation but also with international partners. We had incredible years. We set up a space comprehensive dialogue in Paris in November. We had the state visit of President Macron two weeks ago with a dedicated space sequence focusing on climate change and also exploration. So we think that this Accord presents huge opportunities, not only for technical and scientific programs, but also, you know, from a diplomatical point of view, programatics, for industries, for technologies as well. And in fact, we are really part of the Artemis program, many through ESA. And so we had a municipal conference a few weeks ago confirming, effectively, the involvement of the European Space Agency in exploration. So France, with our contribution to ESA, is a prime of the S-Premodule. So the service module of the gateway. We contribute also to the European service module, of course, but also on a bilateral basis. So this year, we assigned two agreements, Lucy and Faside CXMIC suits, which are scientific instruments on both CLIPS missions that will be launched in 2025. You know, scientific missions prior to the human exploration. So, but we want to expand our bilateral corporations and with an opportunity, there is a huge momentum in France as well with industries. So not only space industries, but industries that are not used to space business, but with the moon, for instance, with the moon surface architecture. So we need plenty of different technological building blocks, habitats, medical centers, for mobility, telecom. And we have plenty of factors who are willing to be part of the game. I think the Artemis Accord really is a key for that. But on top of that, the second reason why we have joined mainly is effectively that we believe that we need a regulatory framework for human exploration. And we always said in the beginning that for us, Artemis Accord are only a first step towards, you know, multilateral agreements to be agreed at the UN cooperation level, for instance. And it is perfectly said in the Artemis Accord, so there are reference to the cooperation you mentioned in Kay as well. It is really say that the scenario we use, their experience to contribute to multilateral effort. So we will see the Artemis Accord are the key here. Yeah, a key study to build experience and to help discussion at a copious level. And the final word is effectively what we aim in France. We say that our objective is effectively to define a regulatory framework, whatever the form is on an international scene to be able to frame the human exploration activities. Just to emphasize that point that they've all made and Pam meant, this is their, you know, I think a lot of people when they chords were announced were sort of wondering why it's taking from a public perspective so long for other countries to join and why there hasn't been a huge rush. Part of it is just the interagency coordination, the intergovernmental coordination that Nicholas talked about, that Masami's talked about, that Mike talked about just in the US. That's a real thing in a lot of countries, especially countries for which maybe space exploration is a new thing. And so I, you know, those that have seen that happen, we're not really that surprised, but it's been good to see this sort of continuous accretion of countries. And I mentioned we're expecting a couple more here very soon. Mike, you've now moved from NASA to the commercial side. So how does that change your perspective on the Accord? And we can't mention a little bit earlier in Pam's talk about the question of the mission authorization, but I think originally you mentioned that the Accords were not designed to apply directly to industry or commercial activities, but what if you can unpack that a little bit? First of all, I'm glad no one's come up to me and say, well, why didn't it take longer to get more people into the Accords? This was warp speed for something of this level. And again, I have to thank Masami and Nicholas, the role that you all played and that the attachés here in the DC embassies played was critical. It would not have happened without both of you. I also am convinced that- It's a pleasure to work days and nights with you. And he is not kidding. That is literally true. And we had some long talks on Gateway, as Sean knows. I'm convinced that Japanese speak much better English than we do. I wish we could have our friends in Japan review everything. And as Nicholas had described, get France and the other nations on board, it really does require it. There's death taxes in C175. Everyone's got one, right? So it's amazing. When it came to yesterday, this was Super Space Sunday. It wasn't just Artemis that landed. It was our friends at iSpace and congratulations. I think we got Marshall in the room there on the terrific launch and to our friends in Japan, of course. And that was one of the wonderful things about the accords, the seeing accords family of nations countries. I won't say without the US, US participated but working together. So United Arab Emirates and the Rashid Rover going up with Japan. It was just wonderful to see. And as an example of the private sector aspect of the accords and this larger picture, because it wasn't just the government Artemis program that had a great day on Sunday. It was that lunar rover. And also the first purchase of lunar resources from NASA that was happening. So a lot going on on Sunday. And from the private sector perspective, what we really wanted from the accords and I'll say from government as well is to prevent conflict. Prevent conflict before it happens. Because conflict is bad for business at least for our business and exploration. And that's why the purpose of the accords was peace. And so much conflict here on earth is caused by misperceptions, miscommunications which is why transparency is the spine that runs throughout the accords. And now we need to find ways to implement it. And you know, came noted relative to the role of copus. Again, the accords were meant to implement these international treaties that were developed by copus because you can't just take the outer space treaty as many talented attorneys as we have at NASA to hand it over to them and say, do this. That there needed to be a degree of fidelity below that in terms of how implementation would be done with the Artemis program. And here in the private sector, again, we've got ISRU activities that we're talking about at Redwire, building the arrays for the power propulsion element will be the largest whole arrays I believe ever deployed by humanity. We need to be operating in a zone where we know there won't be conflict on what the rules are. So issues like safety zones avoidance of debris mitigation. The fact that we can least extract and utilize resources, these are all vital things for us in the private sector to be able to understand. Additionally, the private sector brings sustainability that you might not know who's going to be president for 10 years from now, but you can pretty much guess what the private sector companies are at least going to want and what the leadership's going to be. So integrating the private sector helps with that, sustainable activities. But now that I'm sitting where I'm sitting, I do have to eat some of my own dog food a little bit and that I always said, we've had the private sector grow and play this amazing role now in space exploration, launching not just cargo, but astronauts and now actually building a Leo platform themselves contributing to the gateway. But what we haven't seen enough of is the private sector also engaging at the international and policy level because you can't have these discussions without the private sector in the room and have it be effective. The challenge that we have with the international structure is that it was built for governments and now you've got the private sector playing these important roles. So we need to find new ways through NGOs and commercial iterations of the accords but we have to have the private sector at the table. And for example, I'm headed to Europe this evening to go participate in COSPAR, which is extremely important for the private sector to be there to have those conversations and that's why I'm gonna fall asleep and be tired but we need the private sector to step up and I appreciate what the government has been doing to engage us, Department of State. Well, I love Valda, it is great to have Kay here because she was a part of the Artemis Accords and it's very important for all of that. So I think sitting where I am, I'm committing to taking the time to go to COSPAR and I appreciate that SpaceX, Blue Origin, several other companies are creating positions for people to work on a full-time basis on these sort of international policy issues and that's what we need to be successful because the answer is not government or commercial sector, it's always both. So following up on that, I was wondering, the Misami or Nicholas, are similar discussions happening in Japan and France with regard to the commercial sector, the private sector? Are you talking about how to incorporate them as well? Although first, yeah, of course, and like Icebase is a spectacular example this time, it just happened yesterday morning, very early morning. They launched from Cape Canaveral. I wish I was there too, I couldn't this time but I followed on YouTube which is fantastic what we can do now. And they also happened to talk with a private media person who is investing in, I believe, in Icebase also. So they did a spectacular job on YouTube to report on this and I'd never seen such a long and comprehensive report done by a private media company in Japan and I wish that will happen much more in the future. So what I'm trying to say is the private sector joining is really crucial for people's understanding on what's going on, what we want to do, not to mention the real contribution to the space program itself and the technology and the industry contributions. So we are very much working with the private sector as well and to try to establish rules that would promote the activities of the private sector. We work heavily with the ministries, particularly the cabinet and office, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, those partners to work to establish a set of rules that would enable the commercial companies to feel more comfortable working in the space community, so in the space field. So that's what we're doing. We have a whole department in Japan also working on this. Yeah, and in France, we follow effectively this huge evolution of the space ecosystem. We're not anymore, a bunch of agencies working together, so there's a full ecosystem. In France, we have one space startup creating every week now. Like three years ago, it was one every six months, so we have to tackle with that. And I can tell you, in CNES, we went through a deeper reorganization. We have a new directorate, director of strategy with a directorate dedicated to support the space ecosystem, so the private ecosystem. And also two years ago, so the Ministry of Research and Innovation had the mandate for space and it has been added over to the Ministry of Economy and Industry, so it means something. And effectively, so we are working closely with the private sector. France, we are in charge of, we have implemented the Space Operation Act since 2008, so it's really a law dealing with the space activity, whether it's for launchers or for orbital systems. And we are currently, so CNES is a technical authority for updating this law to be endorsed by the government. And we are currently going on an update of this law, mainly to implement the long term sustainability guidelines agreed in 2019 at Cropure's level. Also at European level, we have the EUSST, so it's a consortium dedicated to deal with STM, space traffic management, and we want to build up commercial capabilities for space situational awareness and space traffic management. So yes, the private sector is deeply involved in space. And so, yeah, so we have to deal with that. So it's more for effectively lower-sorbit sustainability for exploration we start the process, so we don't deal about regulation yet at national level about that, but the Artemis Accord is a good forum for that. So I'm gonna open up to the audience for questions here in a minute, so please start thinking of those. But one last one for the whole panel, but I think I'll start with Kay. What impact do you think the Accords have had on these discussions on norms of behavior, the future rules and governance that we've been talking about here and has been talked about more broadly in multiple years? Do you think they've moved things ahead? Are there particular areas where that is happening that you can sort of talk about as sort of, we've made progress on these different topics? Thank you for that question. And before I begin, I'm gonna take a sip of water. All right. I'd love to say. Yeah. So I think that assessing the impact of the Artemis Accords on civil space exploration will take time. And Artemis missions or the Artemis program inspired the Artemis Accords and they're just beginning. But I think a really key part is the communication, which is what you alluded to in your first response and that these types of conversations about what are we doing to work and live together in outer space in a safe and sustainable manner are incredibly important. And as the NASA Deputy Administrator also mentioned, we in our conversations with signatories and the first one, which was in person took place at the IAC in Paris, we've asked signatories for their input and what are their interests? What is of importance to each individual signatory? And signatories have discussed the opportunity to help build on the outer space treaty and specifically looking at deconfliction of activities. At the IAC meeting, the concept of a safety zone was an important topic identified as requiring further discussion. And signatories also emphasize the importance of space activities that represent the diversity of people on this planet. That was something that was emphasized over and over and over again, looking both at established space-faring nations and those that are just establishing their space sector. And repeated interventions were also made recognizing the need to communicate the relevance of the Artemis Accords and Artemis activities to individuals and communities in both nations that have signed the Artemis Accords and nations that have not yet done so. Communicating the importance of space remains of critical importance. And one venue where Accord signatories are also starting to share information and collaborate is the CopeUS Working Group on Space Resources, which was established last year in the legal subcommittee. Over the course of its five-year work plan, the working group will collect information concerning the exploration, extraction, and utilization of space resources, study the existing legal framework, and develop an initial set of principles for such activities. This is an important step forward and one that the United States will monitor closely. And so the Artemis Accords, I believe, will no doubt continue to guide our engagement with the international community on what responsible outer space behavior looks like as we return to the moon. Thank you. So if I look even more tired than usual, it's because I just got back from United Arab Emirates about 48 hours ago, Kay was there as well. And lots of discussion of the Accords at the Abu Dhabi Space Debate. This was not an event that was sponsored by or led by American any way that you had this robust discussion of norms of behavior driven by the Accords. And I think the Accords have been a tremendous catalyst for a dialogue that we must have and must have now before problems develop and there are too many activities on the moon. And I've often had people come up to me too and say, well, what if China or Russia develops its own version of the Accords? And my response was, I couldn't think of a better success that would be wonderful that the purpose of the Accords is to again push this dialogue forward because while the outer space treaty is wonderful and it's the backbone and the spine of international space law, the constitution from the United States perspective. And I believe that it's just as relevant today as it ever was back in the 60s. So we say the outer space treaty over 50 years old doesn't look a day over 35, but the reason for that is because it's a treaty of principles, of high level principles and those principles of avoiding harmful interference, of preventing conflict, of prohibiting weapons of mass destruction. They're all as true now as they were back in the 60s, but the problem is it's a principle, it's high level and we need to get down to understand better what it means, how we can implement so that we can achieve the goals that were laid out by the outer space treaty. And that's why again, recovering attorney and it was mentioned here, precedence is so important that we're establishing precedence that they can be brought to the copious and then adopted by the United Nations as full on treaties later or at least dialogue and at the very least we're showing what good looks like. And I have great hopes, we'd love to see India join. China even, I believe that there's great overlap between where China is at a policy perspective and that if you were to see, I think, what people's different interpretations are of these rules that there'd be a huge amount of commonality behind us. I think that the Accord started a conversation that will lead to bringing more countries together and discovering the common ground that can be the basis of a better future. Yeah, I think you were mentioning impact is exactly that. I cannot agree more with what you said and Kay said and because at least it has removed the international discussion about these norms of behavior and for exploration and you were talking about communication and I was about to mention effectively China and Russia because I think this is the key. How do we discuss with the countries who will probably never sign the Artemis Accords? And I think you- Let's not say never, let's not say never. I love it. Your next mission. And yeah, because effectively Artemis Accords is a president but also experienced. I think and this is what the Artemis program is for, right? Is to go to the moon, not to settle in the moon but to train operations, technologies, but also policies. And I think with the Artemis program we could have good feedbacks and experience to provide to the copiers and the materials to discuss hopefully with also countries you have just mentioned, you know? And I think this is the key and it has been discussed in Paris during the ISE. Now, how do we do also to discuss with Russia or China about this principle? Because at the end, if we go on the same place where we have a huge quantity of ice and want to do the same whole, how do we manage this situation? And I think effectively I would love to see also a proposal from China and Russia about that to be able to discuss. Still room for me to speak. Yes, so the, well, the Outer Space Treaty, of course, all of the principles stand true today but the settings, the actors, the technology, of course drastically different from them then. And I think, well, we at JAXA, we discussed quite a few times that before Artemis's accords we didn't know what such a set of rules would look like even. Now we have, like Mike said, a form of a precedent to build on and we can discuss areas of future next steps where we should, we need rules based on the items that is raised, the topics that are raised in the accords and that is exactly what is happening now. Deputy Administrator Melroy just mentioned in her speech about the report published by the Office of Technology Policy and Strategy of NASA. And that's kind of like 70 pages though. It's really worth reading through, I think, because it raises all the real technical questions or scientific questions that we would have to keep discussing the accords also just principles in a way. And we all have to keep raising real questions like our Prime Minister Kishida last year in December announced that the intention to have Japanese astronaut. In this, we don't have a differentiation between plural and singular in Japanese, which is really convenient. So, analysis that we would like to have a Japanese astronaut landing on the moon. And to make that happen, we have to tackle real problems and I think that's to shed light on what the path we have to move forward on, that's what the Artemis Accord does. Great, thank you. So we'll open up the audience now for questions. Reminder, please raise your hands, state your name and affiliation, phrase in the form of a question. So, Theresa, then we'll work our way back. Thank you, Theresa Hitchens with Breaking Defense. I'm really interested in engaging China issue because since they do have a pretty robust exploratory program particularly focused on the moon and on the moon, and the US has constraints about how to engage particularly NASA has constraints, about how it can engage with China. On these issues, we also have a military that seems to see everything that China does near the moon as somehow a terrifying threat this minute. So, how do we use the Artemis Accords, how do our allies use the Artemis Accords as a basis to try to talk to China about these issues and to cooperate? How can you use them? I'm happy to take this question first and I think Mike will go next. So, the Artemis Accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty. So they're meant to be inclusive and also flexible. And so we're open to having discussions about responsible behavior in space. And as Mike mentioned, we would invite any responsible space faring nation to sign the Artemis Accords with China in particular. And I'm not the expert, but we do have the China expert there in the room if you have follow-on questions. Our primary goal is to ensure space safety and responsible behavior in outer space. Understanding that communication can be challenging, but we do discuss at every opportunity that we can, how can we work together in order to ensure that our activities are conducted safely and that they do not put anyone at risk? I think you're gay, appreciate. State, again, this is the partnership state, I always take the bullet first, but I would say first, I want to be dismissive of national security concerns. We've certainly learned in Ukraine that a strong defense is vital to protection of freedom. That being said, with China, obviously it's a nuanced issue that yes, we want to make sure that we don't fall behind relative to quantum or space-based satellite robotics, but I do believe that there's an opportunity to find common ground here. And when we develop the Accords, United Arab Emirates and many of the other partners that were developing it, and by the way, I want to push back on any narrative that it was the US that I've heard this, the US drafted the Accords and Twisted Arms, every country that was involved, and again, not just eight space agencies, but eight foreign ministries had veto power, basically over any portion of the Accords and which is why it's amazing how quickly we got to where we were at. And there was a definite and intentional effort to make the Accords as inclusive as possible, that as was said, any responsible space-faring nation could sign the Accords. And I believe that there's nothing in the Accords that China couldn't sign up to today or shouldn't sign up to today, which is why I say that I do hold out hope that there will be a time where the Chinese and many other countries that you wouldn't suspect will commit to if not the Accords principles like the Accords, which would still be a success. And this is where I think the private sector can play an important role, that we need to create new institutions to integrate the private sector, and that will likely come from the NGOs. And I've been a part of the Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group, the name just rolls off the tongue, as well as the Gagsla, the Global Experts Group on Sustainable Lunar Activities. Again, I'm too jet lagged to get all this correct, but there, we had participation with the private sector from government and robust Chinese participation. In the Hague, it was Chinese attorneys that actually contributed to a lot of what was developed with safety zones. So I believe that there's crossover, there's common ground here, and both the private sector, the government, I think we will all reach out to create as much global consensus as we possibly can. And I'm a Star Trek fan, so I'm optimistic that we can get there. Yes, well, as Jaxa, lacking the diplomatic authority or the freedom. But what I probably can say is that like we have been discussing, this is something, Artemis Accord is something we can see. It has been sent to the UN. And we talk a lot about copious and multilateral discussions. Every organization, no organization is perfect. So we cannot expect the UN probably to be perfect either, though. They are a body that where at the high diplomatic level, all the countries come to, they will have, I assume, they will have read the Artemis Accords, have seen it, have tried to understand it. I think this is a very important factor and that we can certainly build on. Yeah, we can build on the Artemis Accords to discuss a good baseline and also it's a good tool for communication with the Chinese, for instance. So we have the copious. We know how it happens. There are big forums with all the people involved. And perhaps we could think about implementing some dialogue as well. We have in mind, for instance, the Paris Peace Forum. I know that there are some dialogues between people who are not used to talk to each other in this type of forum to tackle global challenges. And this one could be one of them, defining numbers of behaviour for outer space treaty. And perhaps we could have this intermediate dialogues with China in this type of forum. And especially build on the Artemis Accord, effectively raise some points like a safety zone, transparency as well. And even these terms are interpreted in a different way in different cultures in China. For instance, transparency in China, I'm not expert. But not necessarily means transparency. Not necessarily means honesty. I don't know how to say it. But we need to discuss these terms, what it means. And perhaps we need intermediate forum to have the opportunity to discuss that. And perhaps the Paris Peace Forum could be a good one of them. I'll just add, you know, Skirwell has been part of you to some of these discussions. We're observers to you and copious. I've not seen anything in the programs that China is planning, both private sector and government, as well as their statements, that would really be at odds with anything that's in the Accords. So I think it's more of a political thing than a substantive thing. And of course, that's a more difficult problem to get at, in some respects, is the politics of it. Any other questions? Hi, Jeff from Space News. We've talked about that no country owns the Artemis Accords. See, in many cases, though, a lot of the signing ceremonies have involved countries signing with the US, with NASA officials. France being one example like that. I'm just curious, what efforts are some of the other Artemis Accord signatories, like France and Japan, doing to outreach to other countries to get them to sign on to the Accords? The USA, lead by example. No, effectively. So for France, effectively, this was important for bilateral cooperation. As I said, we are already involved through ESA to the Artemis program. Most of the major contributors to ESA have joined the Artemis Accords in Europe, so we still miss one. I think he recognized himself. So effectively, and we have this discussion, and I can tell you, for instance, I was mentioning Germany. Prior to signing the Accord, we discussed heavily with our friends from Germany to figure out what it means also for Europe and for Europe in general, for the space policy in Europe and for the space program in Europe as well. So we are discussing internally to Europe, mainly. This is what we do, and then we have the opportunity to discuss, for instance, at the ISC, which has been mentioned extensively with the other signatories, to discuss how we can together, effectively, raise awareness of this Accord to other countries who are not signatories. But as far as France is concerned, I think mainly focus on the European countries. And for JAXA, well, again, lacking the diplomatic authority, I would say that, like just as Pam said, again, we would certainly, if it's brought up, we will bring it up. Some countries, even up till now, have approached asking what it's all about, what did you think. We would certainly answer with sincerity to that. And that's how we will try to promote and explain to other countries. And Jeff, since I'm just back from Abu Dhabi, I see I'd be Kate of the buzzer. I apologize. Let her say it then. But UAE, obviously, with Bahrain, has been a great ambassador for the Accords in the region. I think we've done really well in the Middle East, which is very important. Israel, which now has very close relationship, particularly in space with Emirates, was also influenced. But Kate, I'll turn it over to you. No, I was just going to say the same thing, that there are countries that are stepping up and organizing meetings with prospective signatories, as well as those that have already signed the Artemis Accords. And it's interesting the conversations that they have, because in some ways, they're the same that they would with the United States organizing a meeting. But in many ways, they're also different. They're looking at how do they grow their space economy. They're looking at STEM. They're looking at education. And that makes, I think, our partnership that much stronger. And so we value other signatories organizing events, such as the UAE just did a week ago. So thanks. Marsha Smith, spacepolicyonline.com. This is along the same lines. So Kate, you talked a lot about how the US is not the gatekeeper, and it's not a bilateral agreement with the US. So what is the mechanism, actually, for a country to come along and say they want to join? Is there a depository government or something? Where does it exist? How do you actually tell somebody that you want to join and do all of the existing signatories have to agree to a new country coming on? Or can somebody veto it? If China came along and somebody didn't like China, maybe the US wanted them, but maybe somebody else didn't. How do you actually mechanically do this in order to let other countries come along? Sure, so those are great questions. And I think when the Artemis Accords first started, some of our senior government representatives had those same questions. So the Artemis Accords, the way that they are written, is that there is actually an article that states, if you are interested, if you are a state actor. So the Artemis Accords are only applicable to state actors. But if you would like to sign, there is a signature page template. And we only ask that that signature represent a whole of government. So it can't be a space agency signing on behalf of a space agency. If you're signing, we want it to represent whole of government. And in terms of how the process works, we like to highlight signing ceremonies. So it was mentioned that the US oftentimes hold signing ceremonies. We're not re-signing the Artemis Accords. We're congratulating a new signatory. And so since we've started, and as we've done more outreach in the form of briefings and then also bilateral or multilateral consultations, countries know that I'm the point person for the State Department. We have Neil Newman right there. That's the point person for NASA. And so we communicate both with either a space agency representatives or Ministry of Foreign Affairs representatives to coordinate the signing process, especially if a country wishes to have a signing ceremony. And then your last question, or I guess there's two more, in terms of repositories. So the Artemis Accords were started remotely at the height of the pandemic. So everyone signed and then we took a picture and we have PDF files. So State and NASA are the repositories and we do hold those signatures. Some of them are physical paper and some of them are PDF files. And then the last question of, I'm not gonna forget it. Oh, can countries say no? No. And again, because the way that the Artemis Accords are drafted and by being grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other international treaties, they really operationalize and provide a little bit more specificity. And so if countries have ratified the Outer Space Treaty or a party to the Outer Space Treaty and they're committing to being responsible space actors by signing the Artemis Accords, the original drafters and Mike could speak to this more agreed that it would not be then a decision-making body that would say yes or no to a prospective signatory. Perhaps if I had something, just because effectively these Artemis Accords are primarily for, as far as we understand them, for the countries who are willing to participate to the Artemis Program first. And it is written, no, for civil, for space agency willing to participate to that. And I think it gives a global framework because it will be a reference to the potential MOUs, the Memorandum of Understanding, the agreement we could sign among agencies on a bilateral basis, but it gives us a novel framework that is shared among all the signatories and all the countries that are participating to the Artemis Program. So this is how we see it primarily. And then, as we said in the past, it can be used as an example to help the discussion at a copious level to define multilateral agreements or principles. I just wanna pick up quickly on something that Nicholas said. Good regulations come from good experience. When you regulate something, an activity, before it occurs, that's dangerous for the activity, for the government and the private sector. And that's exactly what the accords were meant to do, to not undermine the copious process, but to make it better by taking actual experience going to international forums like the copious, saying this is what we experienced, this is how we dealt with it. And to then inform the decisions that a group like that will be made on actual science, on actual activities. Just remember that the accords are not the end, they're a beginning of a global discussion. Hi, Nicholas here from Alternate Surprises from London. So my earlier and also Pamela or before they talked about the importance of involvement of private players for the policy. So I would like to ask the panelists for their standpoint on how the commercial companies, private companies can become commercial beyond the government contract for the lunar economy. How commercial companies can participate in the policy? Yes, not the policy itself, but how can they become commercial in the lunar economy beyond the government contract? And what's your view on that? Yeah, so that's what success looks like when we in the private sector are having conversations about cis-lunar activities and we don't even mention NASA as much as I appreciate the agency, that's where we need to be. I mean, look at what happened with commercial satellites, for example. Satellites began as a purely government activity, maybe a handful, a half dozen government owned and operated satellites. And then when the private sector was able to build satellites to create them, to deploy them, you had a growth of a sector and capabilities that we couldn't even have imagined at that time. And I believe the same will happen in cis-lunar space and on the moon. We talked about the moon then and now and Pam made some comments that a decade ago didn't even know that there was lunar ice on the moon. No, we didn't think that was bone dry. And now we know there are vast quantities of water ice. I guarantee that is not the last substantial discovery that we'll make, which could drive commercial development. So I think what the private sector needs to and certainly what Redwire and other companies have been attempting is to find commercial markets that we can then enjoy that hopefully will grow beyond government. But government has a very important role to play in that as a customer and as a catalyst and we've seen it in terms of cargo, crew and now the commercial space stations, what I think is extraordinarily exciting and will also act as an accelerant for commercializing Leo. We're moving up geographically. So we need the government to continue to pursue public private partnerships and support those. Again, we talk about it's so wonderful that we went from one administration to the other and then certainly all the people that I pointed out did a great job getting the armist cords going but without Pam Elroy, without Senator Nelson, Vice President herself has been a huge advocate for the accords, we've had this continuity and I think even for the private sector to succeed, we need that policy continuity of going back to the moon, developing the moon and developing in a fashion that opens up opportunities for the private sector and the government working together. No, just to add that effectively, it's also a sensitive question because when we talk about space commerce, what do we mean? And for instance, Artemis Accord, it's clearly said that it's to frame space activity by the space agencies or governmental activities. So for instance, when we talk about in-situ resource utilization for France, for us, it's clearly at the service of institutional programs in human exploration, not to dig up everywhere we want and to sell, to deep mining and I make the parallel with a statement of President Macron in November at the COP 27 about deep sea mining, we said, it made clearly the difference between, okay for exploration, but not for exploitation for deep sea mining. I think this is the same from our perspective for the moon, so this means effectively we rely on the space private companies at the service of effectively establishing a sustainable presence on the surface of the moon, exploiting the water on the surface and so on. But this is clearly that frame so far and we made clear when we talk about in-situ resource utilization, this is in that frame so far for us and this is why we signed the Artemis Accord. And I'll just quickly add that increasingly we see space activities that are being conducted by commercial actors and also pure commercial activities and so the Artemis Accords don't apply to those pure commercial activities and yet the private sector seeks a predictable environment and so it's one thing that my office in particular is focused on how do we better engage the private sector to understand what is it that they need? Do they need more regulation or is it enough? Within COPUS, one example that has worked is the federal register notice. So typically when you have technical presentations, it's an industry association that's selecting who is going, whereas this federal register notice has opened up opportunities for smaller companies to submit and to potentially then participate. So we're thinking through how is it that from a policy standpoint, we can better involve the private sector so we're guided by what they need rather than telling them which isn't necessarily the right thing to do. Thanks. But oh sorry, I'll be so sad if we didn't have that little transformer robot on iSpace so to have a little bit of the ride is very welcome to us and I'd say just tell us how this kind of service contrast that we're starting to have is a change of the way we work together. So we'd welcome the commercial sector to tell us with kind of a relationship you want to have with JAXA to move forward. Afternoon, Jay Rakesh, research engineer here in DC. I'm just curious in terms of the chords when I think of trying to understand the goals because when I think of democracy, I think of representation of ideas and people. How is the chords looking into beyond just advancing technology capabilities, cultural identities? When you think about responsible behavior, I think about responsible inspiration. Is the chords figuring out creative ways to make sure the activities that we do when we explore space can attract the talent to produce the future. Because my concern is I would hope that every country in Africa become signing signatories and the South American and the girl of Venezuela could see someone else on the moon playing the violin like herself or the girl on the Bronx seeing that activity. So what are the activities that you guys are looking at culturally and artistically that can attract talent? It's a great point. And let me say when we were founding the chords, the purpose was to create the broadest, most diverse beyond Leo-Human spaceflight coalition in history. Diversity is really the underlying principle of the Artemis program in so many ways. Diversity of people. If you look at our astronaut corps right now for Artemis is the most diverse I think in history, safe to say, Sean. Diversity in terms of countries, as we said, broadest in the history of humanity. And then diversity of organizations as well. The role of the private sector is playing is also unprecedented. And we need to be able to involve all of those different types of people and types of countries to be successful globally at space exploration and to make it sustainable. And while I love the International Space Station program, again, we talked about peace prizes. I mean, I believe the ISS should be given a peace prize. That it is, we take it for granted, I think, too much, particularly in the space world, that there's this internationally constructed, incredibly complex piece of machinery orbiting the Earth every day with a multinational group of diverse astronauts supporting it. It's amazing. And we need to keep that going via the Artemis program. But one of the challenges with the ISS is it's very difficult for new countries to join the Intergovernmental Agreement, the IGA for the ISS. Even though we've had hundreds, obviously, of countries participate. And the idea with the Accords was no matter whether it's a wealthier country and one with a lot of space resources or capabilities, such as Japan and France, or a country like a Bahrain, or African countries, or Columbia. I mean, that's why, well, again, absolutely thrilled to have, obviously, France and Japan involved. I do get particularly excited, though, over some of these smaller countries and their involvement, because we have to have them. And in terms of what they would do, even if it's as modest as some grad students studying some of the lunar imagery or science to help us out, even that, I think, can make a huge difference and add to the diversity and vibrancy, sustainability, and ultimately success of the Accords. And if I may, this is one of the key action we took, the near-term action. It was mentioned by Pan during the last meeting in IAC, how to identify opportunities for emerging space nations to come up. And what spoke as man nations, you know, those emerging countries like that. And you're mentioning Africa and Tumor, the U.S.-African summit organized by SPI and space, I think, Shirag Parikh will be a part of it, or probably other colleagues there, and space will be part of the discussion as well, so. And I know that in Africa, in Latin America, there are initiatives to gather, to enter the space business and exploration. Just to pick up on that, I think, you know, countries like Mexico are joining and Brazil, I think that was, they're not traditional human spaceflight countries, and they're not traditional human spaceflight partners in the United States. I think that signals a change, and to your point, and our discussions on these countries, they are looking at this differently. They're looking for different things, not just to go to the moon or something, but also benefits on earth. I think it's why a lot of the countries are looking at participating in the program, because they're still looking for how does this help our population, how does this help our citizens, how does this help our economy. So I'm seeing that from some of the discussions of the newer countries that are joining the Accord Gen are thinking about joining. I said, there's gonna be a couple of announcements very soon, it should be interesting to see how that pans out. So with that, we are at time for today. Two quick things for my close up. One, we're gonna be posting the recording of the event, hopefully early next week. So if you've missed anything, it'll be up on our YouTube channel. The second thing, if you haven't yet, please eat some cake on the way out. Hopefully someone's cut into that by now, but I don't, I don't wanna take that home, so I might as well take it on the airplane tonight. So please eat some cake. And so with that, please join me in thanking our panelists.