A five day conference on the Exploration and Utilisation of the Moon was completed last week in Udaipur, India, and was capped by the Udaipur Declaration. The Declaration calls on nations to refine and rewrite the 35-year old Moon Treaty, and to collaborate in a way not seen before in the exploration of the moon. Issues touched upon during the conference included potential real estate issues on the moon.

The conference was organised by the Indian Space Research Organisation, the European Space Agency and the International Lunar Exploration Working Group. Space scientists representing 17 countries were on hand to participate in the conference and writing of the Declaration.

Today, many nations are involved in space exploration, a remarkable progress from the 1960's when only the two superpowers, United States and the former Soviet Union competed in the race to the moon. China, Japan, Europe, and India will all send orbiters to the moon between now and 2010. India’s Chandrayaan-1 is expected to fly in 2007.

Because of this new global interest in space exploration and utilization, the Declaration calls for a more co-ordinated effort from different space agencies around the world in an effort to treat the moon as a "common heritage of mankind". “A major goal is to get countries to share data,” said Narender Bhandari, a scientist at the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, and the president of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group to The Telegraph Newspaper. "For this, missions from different countries will have to use common data formats which can be interpreted by others.”

At the conference, some scientists raised the concern that given the fresh impetus to lunar missions and the likely rewards, human bases may also give way to claims of ownership to chunks of lunar real estate. The Moon Treaty, written in 1979, says the moon and its resources are the “common heritage of Mankind” and no part of it can be claimed by government, inter-government, NGOs or by individuals. However, some private organisations have been offering real estate on the moon.

“This problem may come up after permanent bases are set up,” said Bhandari. He continued, “One suggestion was that any permanent base should have personnel from different countries,”.

Although propietary rights of the moon was addressed, other aspects of moon exploration and utilization were discussed. One interesting topic was the potential to harvest Helium-3 from the moon. Helium-3 may potentially be used as a futuristic source of fuel.

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