By
Theresa Hitchens on February 12, 2021 at 5:06 PM
DARPA NOM4D project image
WASHINGTON: DARPA’s new project to research and develop novel materials and processes for manufacturing in space in particular on the Moon is stirring a legal and political dust storm about what DoD can and cannot do in cislunar space under the Outer Space Treaty.
“From an international perspective, DARPA doing anything on the Moon looks bad. It raises suspicions about the intentions of the U.S. space program there, and rightfully so,” Jessica West, senior researcher at Canada’s Project Ploughshares and managing editor of the widely-respected Space Security Index project, said in an email yesterday.