Legal challenges of additive manufacturing on the Moon

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) is promising for supporting sustainable human presence on the Moon as it reduces costs and dependency on the Earth. It has been incorporated into several lunar programs. Nonetheless, AM on the Moon is legally challenging. First, the legal field most challenged by AM is intellectual property (IP) law, and the peculiar location of AM on the Moon complicates the issue. Deciding the State to exercise jurisdiction and extend its IP protection to the Moon encounters difficulties. Second, AM on the Moon is most valuable when it uses lunar regolith as a source of printing material, which may face similar legal problems to in situ resource utilization, including determining the legality of the activity, deciding the State to exercise the jurisdiction and control over it, the protection of the lunar environment, and so forth. Lunar in situ AM using lunar regolith (LISAMUR), meaning using lunar regolith as raw materials to manufacture objects on the Moon through AM technologies, renders these problems more imminent and substantial. The article delves into the two categories of legal issues ignited by AM on the Moon and reveals that three reasons lead to the legal dilemma: the ambiguous terminology of the space treaties, the abstract principles, and the lacunae in space law. It suggests that as international legislation is slow, temporary approaches of coordinating the understanding of critical notions and relevant principles in space law and updating the registration regime through international cooperation on multilateral platforms would be more viable for coping with the legal challenges of AM on the Moon.