Today, the US Navy, in coordination with allies around the world, provides security and support to global sea-based logistics networks. In eras past, national navies as well as semi-private organizations such as the East India Companies, have provided similar security and support, suppressed bad behavior such as piracy and smuggling, while supporting global trade. As the global economy expands into space, so too does supply chain and logistics. Therefore, the need to secure the activity grows. Currently, neither the law, nor the capability is complete, and the needs are poorly defined. How will trade be secured for the LEO and Cislunar economies? Speakers will explore current paradigms and the workshop will develop a set of needs and possible scenarios that must be addressed.

The rockets are being built. Companies are planning lunar mines, power systems, communications networks and settlements. Governments are forming competing coalitions. Surely a treaty written in 1967 cannot tell today’s entrepreneurs how to build a lunar economy. Or can it?

This interactive workshop will put the Outer Space Treaty to work. Participants will confront a fast-moving lunar scenario involving rival settlements, competing resource operations, safety zones, damaged infrastructure and interference with historic and scientific sites. Does the Treaty protect private enterprise or constrain it? Can companies secure investment without traditional property rights? Who gets priority when two operators want the same location? Can contracts, insurance, technical standards and private arbitration fill the gaps, or will governments inevitably step in?

This will not be a lecture about what lawyers think the Treaty means. Participants will determine what the Treaty must mean if people are actually going to live, work and do business on the Moon, then identify the practical steps needed to build rules that facilitate investment, commercial growth and human settlement without importing unnecessary terrestrial bureaucracy. The precedents established on the Moon will not remain there. They will influence how humanity approaches resources, property, commerce and settlement on Mars, asteroids and throughout the solar system. You may not care about the Outer Space Treaty. But the future space economy will be built within the legal framework it created.

With NASA returning to the Moon via the Artemis program--this time with plans to stay--now's the time to iron out how we plan to move mass efficiently around the solar system to support these and other human space settlement activities. We'll focus on the supply chains, resource management, and orbital transit networks required to sustain human presence across cislunar and interplanetary space. In this two-hour collaborative workshop, we will map out the critical infrastructure, risks, and technical gaps preventing us from bridging these three celestial bodies. Through rapid brainstorming sessions and structured group debates, we will analyze current capabilities and future friction points. Ultimately, we will co-create and deliver to the assembled Space Settlement Summit three core architectural findings and three high-impact recommendations for immediate action by 2028.

Located in Orlando, Florida, the Exolith Lab is a space hardware testing and regolith research facility managed by the Florida Space Institute. The Exolith Lab develops and characterizes Lunar, Martian, and asteroid regolith (soil) simulants. The Exolith Lab works with NASA while also performing its own ISRU research led by Dr. Dan Britt.

The Exolith Lab enables space exploration, science, and education by making high-fidelity regolith simulants available to researchers and students around the globe.