actual discovery in the soil at the lunar poles by Chandrayaan-1 (ISRO) in 2008–09 renewed interest in the Moon. A range of moonbases have been proposed by states and public actors. Currently the US-led international Artemis program seeks to establish with private contractors a state run orbital lunar way-station in the 2020s, and China advances with Russia to establish the International Lunar Research Station in the 2030s. Mainly proposed to serve the goal of exploration such proposals and ongoing projects have increasingly also aimed for enabling exploitation or commercialization of the Moon, something that has been criticized as colonialism and contrasted by proposals such as the Declaration of the Rights of the Moon, drawing on the concept of the Rights of Nature for a legal personality of non-human entities in space. China has called for an Earth-Moon Special Economic Zone to be established by 2050. Missions Far from being a colony, the temporary Tranquility Base of the first crewed mission to the Moon in 1969, as well as its successor camps of the Apollo missions, has been the closest to a colony on the Moon so far. Before and since then a permanent human presence through colonization of the Moon has been pursued and advocated for by a range of civil actors and space advocacy groups. But most importantly different countries have been putting forward concepts and plans for not only new crewed expeditions, but also for moonbases. The pursued purpose of such moonbases is broad, but is mostly for space exploration, but also for exploiting and commercializing the Moon and advocating for a lunar and cis-lunar infrastructure, economy and settled society. The most advanced contemporary missions share this spectrum of purpose, between exploration and exploitation. For example, the leading Artemis program and International Lunar Research Station projects, while focusing on exploration, they do both mention prospecting for lunar resource extraction for in-situ resource utilization as an objective, in the case of the American policy including that the Artemis program should furthermore enable resource commercialization and private enterprise. These bases are planned to be crewed, but only eventually permanently. Commercial proposals though have suggested building and use of moonbases for tourism and possibly settlement. Critique Economic prospecting and development For long-term sustainability, a space colony should be close to self-sufficient. Mining and refining the Moon's materials on-site – for use both on the Moon and elsewhere in the Solar System