While most of us are transfixed daily by more horrific atrocities, potentially deadlier operations are likely to far outlast the genocide in Gaza.

In late May, 200 space industrialists and techno-militarists met in Sydney and discussed Elon Musk’s plan to colonise and weaponise the moon and Mars. From the windows of the Darling Harbour convention centre, they could see a smaller but equally earnest gathering of protesters holding banners. Their songs and free speech could not be heard because police disallowed the use of microphones.

Outside, and presumably inside, much of the talk was about Starlink (Musk’s satellite internet technology), Space X (with which he aims to build a sustainable colony on Mars), Starshield (a classified derivative of Starlink for military or government purposes), Anduril (which collaborates with Musk on a satellite constellation to track and target hostile missiles), Accenture (providing global services in “strategy, consulting, technology and operations”), and Palantir, its invigilating fellow traveller.

Palantir has been lavishly funded by President Donald Trump’s administration (more than US$905 million), and by its billionaire far-right supporter Peter Thiel. Palantir has contracts from the Departments of Defence and of Homeland Security to collect data on all Americans – something Edward Snowden warned about in 2013. It could be used to invigilate, threaten, and repress innocent citizens whose views don’t coincide with those of an administration with a tendency towards fascism that becomes clearer by the day.

Artemis III is expected to send American astronauts to the moon again in 2027. Cuts to the NASA budget for 2026 mean plans have been cancelled for a lunar research station, but the US has plans for a “Gateway” orbital lunar space station in 2027. These government projects, with co-operation from states in the European Space Agency, will run in parallel with Musk’s multiple satellite launches beginning in 2022.

Since 2021, China and Russia have been partners in plans for a robotic base on the moon, powered by nuclear fusion, and an orbiting space station. This is intended to lay the foundation for manned missions to Mars. China intends to put its first man on the moon in 2028 in its Chang’e project. Beijing says it has co-operation from 50 other countries in these plans.

Mining the moon for metal oxides, regolith (lunar soil), rare earth metals, and helium-3 (a potential fuel for nuclear fusion) is an objective for all states involved. This raises the prospect of them colonising and owning the moon.

Such a development would be contrary to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, in which states agreed that no nation could claim sovereignty over the moon, nor could any commercial company such as Musk’s SpaceX. “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies,” it said, “is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”

Australia has been involved in the militarisation of space for more than five decades. US surveillance operations at Pine Gap were controlled from the outset in 1966 by the US National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency. Peter Murphy of Australians for War Powers Reform and Mobilisation Against AUKUS and War told the protesters at Darling Harbour that Pine Gap is a war fighting base, and hence a prime target for Chinese nuclear attack. So Pine Gap can be expected to be active in future wars in space. The main US obective, he said, is military dominance over China, Russia, and any other challenger state.

Murphy expects the US Space Command and its Chinese counterpart to move killer satellites close to each other’s surveillance and communications satellites and blow them up or disable them with laser strikes or other electronic pulse weapons. Strikes on seabed fibre optic cables would cripple global communications. Murphy urged the conference participants — who couldn’t hear him — to declare that space must be for peaceful purposes only, and to refuse to take part in military-related research and development projects.

That’s unlikely to happen. Consultancy giant Accenture evolved from Arthur Andersen, accountants for the notorious Enron. As a more potent version of Cambridge Analytica, its biometric databases produce predictive algorithms that target messaging to individuals around the world, and its lucrative contacts are reportedly associated with bid-rigging and corruption by governmental clients in many countries. The global reach of both Accenture and Palantir includes their operations in Australia.

The Defence Department breached the intent of Commonwealth purchasing rules last year when it handed  consulting giant Accenture a contract now worth $143 million to deliver security vetting services, according to Australia’s auditor-general. In 2023, Palantir Technologies extended its contract with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre to supply its big data management and analytics software for financial intelligence and anti-money-laundering, a deal extension worth $8.1 million.

There’s a clearly a lot more money being thrown at war in space than to peace on earth.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.