Cannibalizng some provisions of the MA/MT that are not related to space resources is okay, but I would go the Hague or the ISS IGA way. The CHM principle is based in the old concept of NIEO and if we are actually thinking about ISRU and space development using local resources (von neumann machine style), the CHM is an unbearable burden. If we take a closer look on the space industrialization projects of the 70's and 80's - the times of the MA/MT debate and the L5 Society - we can actually see the blurring of lines between "use for your own needs" and commercial use (like building powersats or space manufacturing facilities). The HWG had a better approach to space resources in their blocks.

“If we can put a woman on the Moon why we can’t we (fill in the blank)?”

Many people would say - if we can waste money on some political stunts, we can also use it to feed the poor of fund some other social programs (William Proxmire's seal of approval here).

But Eric - You are aware, that after the first female landing, there will be a lot of comments about that person not being LGBTQ or not representative of some minority group (Say she's of an African descent, but from a late immigrant family, not african americans)? Or that she was a college prodigee, and not from a working class family? I'm all for sending who ever is trained to go to the moon. The problem I have is calling it the Glass Ceiling there, only a budgetary wall. If it weren't for that, we'd have a global representation on the Moon or even a Mars flyby YEARS AGO.

As far as I love the old O'Neillian concept, Harry Stine, Peter Vajk and loads of others whom I read in the process of working on my PhD, there are also realities of the "ruined past". While ISRU and industrial mining and tranport of REE and PGMs will help the terrestrial industry, we don't actually know how much Helium 3 there is to start bragging about energy revolution. SPS systems have a large problem. Or a Huge if I may call it that way. That is not the ratios of power transformation loss and transmission. they are essentialy giant structures that might be affected by the Solar Wind in a similar way that space sails are. Second the current sat industry would sue the SPSers out of their socks for every LEO sat that got burned flying through microwawes.

Yes, the future is about utilizing space and creating a better world, we knew that since the attempts to stop the Moon Agreement and the introduction of the Space Industrialization Act of 1979-1980. The only way SPS might be found very useful is actually a scenario, where terrestrial PVs are inoperational due to the air pollution.

I Agree that AOC sounds like Bill Proxmire 2.0, but without further funding and developement of projects that would help us also recycle space debris, all our ideas might share the fate of every great space or AI concept from the 80s and 70s.
Funding and proper policy. That is first.

And we also need to think about new nuclear plants for Earth.

And as hkeithhenson said (The Henson from the L5?), fuels are also a problem.

It should be more of a long term program than start-ups pitchdecks. Start-Ups should provide the program with technologies, but they are not international policy makers.

Too bad they fell, but others are comming. How many space companies perished before Space X could make it's case.

Good thing Dennis that you mentioned the Hague Draft. Although most members of the Workgroup aren't in favor of the Moon Treaty, as you might find out in the part of the draft concerining the benefit sharing.

I don't like the thing that we need to adopt the moon treaty without revision or actually creating new laws. Currently it's not considered customary law (which was uderlidned during the recent UNCOPUOS 2018 and 2017 sessions), and faces the same fate of the 2017's nuke prohibition treaty.

You should get an observer status at the hague group.