Who owns the moon? We’re just going to have to get up there and find out

A legal loophole has made it impossible to say who can claim the moon - but with a wealth of minerals and "rare earth" elements, plus huge potential for space exploration, we'll have to get up there and fight it out.

By Michael Brooks

(Photo By Shade of things to come: Neil Armstrong ventured across the moon's surface on 20 July 1969, marking the start of efforts to claim our near neighbour. Photograph: NASA/New York Times/Redux.)

“I know I may not make it through this lunar night.” The China Academy of Space Technology laid the pathos on thick when it gave its lunar robot Jade Rabbit a farewell speech at the end of last month. The rover had become mired in moon dust and was unable to enter hibernation. Facing 14 days without sunlight, the solar-powered robot, launched on 2 December, was unlikely to survive. “Good night, Planet Earth,” it said. “Good night, humanity.”

It looked like the end of a venture that could have accelerated the process of finding out who – if anyone – owns the moon. The ultimate goal for Jade Rabbit was to bore a hole in the moon and see what moon rock is made of. That’s because the Chinese think the moon’s minerals might be worth extracting. “They are looking at feasibility for mining the moon, and they are likely to do it if there’s a strong business case,” says Richard Holdaway, director of the space division at the UK’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, which collaborates closely with China’s space programme.