Artemis II: Militarised space race accelerates under corporate-state alliances, obscuring lunar colonialism's extractive logic
Original framing: “Lift off! Artemis II mission sends humans to the Moon — opening a new era of exploration” — Nature
The original framing omits indigenous lunar cosmologies that view the Moon as a sacred entity, not a resource frontier. It ignores historical parallels to 19th-century Antarctic expeditions, where 'scientific exploration' masked territorial claims. Structural causes include the privatisation of space under the 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (US) and the lack of binding international treaties on lunar resource governance. Marginalised voices include African, Latin American, and Indigenous scientists excluded from Artemis Accords negotiations.
Low structural omission detected in mainstream coverage.
The narrative is produced by NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Western science journals like Nature, serving the interests of state militaries and aerospace corporations. Framing the mission as a 'new era of exploration' obscures the colonial extraction logic embedded in the Artemis Accords, which grant private entities rights to lunar resources. This framing also marginalises Global South perspectives, reinforcing a neocolonial space governance model that excludes 80% of the world's population from decision-making.
The Artemis program mirrors 19th-century Antarctic expeditions, where 'scientific exploration' masked territorial annexation under the guise of discovery. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, drafted during the Cold War, lacks enforcement mechanisms for resource extraction, leaving a legal vacuum exploited by corporations. Historical precedents like the 1979 Moon Agreement (rejected by spacefaring nations) demonstrate how resource governance debates recur cyclically. The current race echoes the 19th-century 'Scramble for Africa,' where extractive industries justified expansion through 'civilising missions.'
The Artemis II mission exemplifies how space exploration has become a neocolonial project, where corporate-state alliances (NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin) frame lunar expansion as a 'new era' while obscuring extractive logics and Indigenous erasure.