A key component is entirely missing from their architecture: global governance, international cooperation and explicitly space ethics. We cannot build a Mars mission in a United States-centric vacuum. To send humans to Mars and bring them back safely, we must go not as a nation, but as a planet. Yet the Artemis Accords, while well-intentioned and important, are bilateral agreements that risk carving the moon to Mars pathways into geopolitical fiefdoms. This isn’t a hypothetical scenario; it’s an ethical minefield that demands a binding, pre-agreed international ethical code of conduct, not a last-minute conference call.