Returning to the Moon: Legal Challenges as Humanity Begins to Settle the Solar System – Full Transcript

On March 6, 2020, leading space lawyers gathered in the Moot Court Room of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University to discuss and debate the legal challenges and opportunities arising from the growing number of lunar missions in the planning stages in early 2020, in particular NASA’s Artemis Program which will for the first time establish a permanent human habitation on our moon through cooperation between NASA and its international partners (both public and private). The day-long symposium on Returning to the Moon: Legal Challenges as Humanity Begins to Settle the Solar System was organized by the Global Space Law Center (GSLC) together with the Global Business Law Review (GBLR). SpaceX and the Open Lunar Foundation sponsored the event (along with an auditorium full of local attorneys seeking Continuing Legal Education credits in Space Law!). What follows is a transcript of the symposium.

This is a break from the traditional format of the American law journal, but the entire purpose of the symposium was to break free from canned presentations and see what comes of dynamic debate. The only way to preserve the special character of the fruit of this debate is to capture the actual conversation in a transcript.