National Park on the Moon: New New Bill Proposes Project, Will it Be Approved?

Two democratic politicians have made a proposal to build a national park on the moon, the New York Daily News reported.

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) have prepared the Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act. The designation would be set in place to protect the site where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed in July 1969.

"As commercial enterprises and foreign nations acquire the ability to land on the moon, it is necessary to protect the Apollo lunar landing sites for posterity," the proposal said. "Establishing the Historical Park under this Act will expand and enhance the protection and preservation of the Apollo lunar landing sites and provide for greater recognition and public understanding of this singular achievement in American history."

The proposal may conflict with the Outer Space Treaty from 1967, signed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union at the height of the space race. The treaty - joined by 100 other countries - states that all space objects remain the property of the country launched them. It also bars any claim of lunar territory or national sovereignty - parks included.

The bill took the treaty into consideration and limited the park to areas of the moon's surface which NASA equipment and astronauts actually touched. In other words, the main attraction would be Aldrin and Armstrong's footprints and rover tracks.

With space travel and discovery widely expanding, more and more commercial attempts have been made to make space, and the moon, accessible. Talks of space commerce, space cruises and space hotels have been gaining traction and could become reality within the next decade.

In 2011, NASA reported a growing interest in space commerce and, in reaction, companies inquired about how to approach such an industry, reported International Business Times.

If approved the moon park proposal would be submitted to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to possibly be designated a World Heritage Site.

The treaty may be a challenge for the moon park proposal to overcome. Joanne Gabrynowicz, director of the National Center for Remote Sensing, Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi, said the treaty specifically states: "The fact that a lunar rover or other object has traversed lunar territory does not constitute a claim."