Race to the Stars #2

TIL

... that Don Trump has asked his administration to investigate the large-scale economic development of the moon. His NASA plans abandons the International Space Station but put $150 mil. in "to encourage development of new commercial low-Earth orbital platforms and capabilities for use by the private sector and NASA". And his Space Policy Directive 1 of December '17 calls Murican Astronauts back to duty on Moon' s soil.

It's not the Donald only, though, reminds an article on Newatlas, as "the US government updated its commercial space legislation in late 2015 to allow for the exploitation of "space resources." : the SPACE Act.(...) It explicitly allows for US citizens to commercially explore and gather off-Earth resource"

This goes in contradiction with the Moon Treaty of 1979, who said that the Moon was off-limits for private or commercial ownership, but which was *not ratified* by the USA.
Thus the USA are only bound to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (2 years before the USA set foot on the satellite), which prohibits any *state* from owning the Moon, or any off-planet natural asset.
Other countries are in for the race, starting with Asteroid Mining.

Unfortunately, Drump has also upped the ante in the militarization of space after he called for a Space Force that would go beyond the current Air Force's Space command. The use of such a force has not been explained, but it could go beyond the limits of what the Outer Space Treaty implements or sneak past them.