Mexico signs Artemis Accords
Mexico on December 9, 2021 became the fourteenth nation to sign the U.S.-led Artemis Accords, designed to bypass the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property in space.
[Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, Mexico’s secretary of foreign relations,] announced Mexico’s accession to the accords at an event attended by several other Mexican government officials as well as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar and José Hernández, a former NASA astronaut. Hernández said in the statement that Mexico’s decision to join the Artemis Accords was evidence that, for this return to the moon, “we are going to do it as a community.”
The full list of signatories at this moment: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the United States.
Russia and China have both said they oppose the accords. Both want control to be centralized to the government, and the accords act instead to strengthen the rights of the citizens and private companies in space.
France and Germany remain the two major Western space powers who have not signed the accords. Both undecided on what they will do. Both seem eager to partner with Russia and China, and to do so also seem willing to abandon in space concepts of private property and individual rights in order to make those partnerships happen. At the same time both — especially Germany — have been pushing private enterprise in space.
This policy conflict is making both countries appear very confused.
Mexico on December 9, 2021 became the fourteenth nation to sign the U.S.-led Artemis Accords, designed to bypass the Outer Space Treaty’s restrictions on private property in space.
[Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, Mexico’s secretary of foreign relations,] announced Mexico’s accession to the accords at an event attended by several other Mexican government officials as well as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar and José Hernández, a former NASA astronaut. Hernández said in the statement that Mexico’s decision to join the Artemis Accords was evidence that, for this return to the moon, “we are going to do it as a community.”
The full list of signatories at this moment: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the United States.
Russia and China have both said they oppose the accords. Both want control to be centralized to the government, and the accords act instead to strengthen the rights of the citizens and private companies in space.
France and Germany remain the two major Western space powers who have not signed the accords. Both undecided on what they will do. Both seem eager to partner with Russia and China, and to do so also seem willing to abandon in space concepts of private property and individual rights in order to make those partnerships happen. At the same time both — especially Germany — have been pushing private enterprise in space.
This policy conflict is making both countries appear very confused.