Sisters of the Good Samaritan: Fly me to the Moon

August 2021

Sister Mary McDonald recently wrote a blog for the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St. Benedict. She chose to write a fantastic narrative on her appreciation for the Moon’s beauty, using her journey from astronomy class, to the first moon landing and pop culture as a backdrop for the importance of this lunar body. She also brings up the incredible lure we have to the Moon: whether it be to take it or protect it.

Mary Donald quotes: “Space agencies and private corporations are continuing their explorations and planning to extract lunar resources for profit. This is legitimated by the belief that the Moon is a dead world toward which we have no moral obligation." While the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 protects the Moon from becoming a territory of another nation and protection from contamination of outside matter, it does not protect it from global colonization of the removal of its own resources. Sister Mary believes that the Declaration of the Rights of the Moon is the answer to filling in this gap. By using the “rights of nature” legal framework to preserve its lunar ecological integrity, the Moon can continue revealing its beauty for millennia. This article can be found here.