Artemis program faces budget crunch as astronauts train for ambitious moon mission.
NASA's Artemis 3 mission aims to land a human crew near the lunar south pole, which is home to permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) that may contain extractable ice. However, some suggest placing a moratorium on up-close inspection of PSRs to preserve them as a "paleo-cosmic tape recorder." Recent studies have identified areas of interest within the Artemis 3 candidate landing sites that might be hiding water ice that could be used by future human crews on the moon's surface. Lunar mining is likely to be one of the first major tests of space property rights, and it remains to be seen whether international treaties and national laws will guide us towards cooperation, competition, or conflict over limited resources like ice on the moon.