NASA challenges companies to extract lunar soil



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NASA announced Thursday that it plans to purchase lunar soil from a commercial company, and the agency’s chief official said it is an attempt to set a precedent for transferring ownership of exotic materials and stimulating markets to collect cadaver resources across the globe. Solar system. .

The initiative started small, but NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstein said Thursday that companies will be able to extract ice water, precious metals and other resources from the lunar soil.

“We are interested in buying lunar soil commercially,” Bridenstein said in a virtual presentation at the Safer World Foundation’s Space Sustainability Summit on Thursday. So we want a commercial company to go to the moon and harvest lunar soil so that NASA can own it. “

“We are buying Legolis, but we are already doing it to show that the resources extracted from the moon are actually owned by those who have invested in races and treasures,” Bridenstein said.

Bridenstine said NASA’s efforts to buy lunar soil from commercial companies are based on a law passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in 2015. The law allows private organizations to extract, own and use water, minerals and other materials taken from the moon. .

Bridenstein said NASA’s goal of promoting a commercial lunar mining market is in line with the 1967 Space Treaty, an international agreement ratified by 110 countries, including the United States, Britain, China and Russia.

The Space Treaty establishes that “Space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national ownership by sovereignty, use, occupation or any other means.”

Bridenstein said NASA believes in space treaties, but NASA wants to “revitalize the normalization process” to show that it is capable of exploring and possessing extraterrestrial resources.

“We … believe that we cannot make the moon suitable for national sovereignty,” he said. “This is not what we are trying to do at all.

“But we believe that we can extract and use the moon’s resources in the same way that we can extract and use tuna from the sea,” Bridenstein said. “We do not own the sea. However, if you invest your hard work and effort in catching tuna from the sea, you can have tuna in the sea, which is a very valuable resource for humanity.

“So the question is, can we have property rights over the resources extracted without using the moon or other celestial bodies as national sovereignty. I think the answer is overwhelmingly yes. “

Through the Artemis program, NASA plans to land astronauts on the Moon for the first time since 1972. Last year, the Trump administration ordered NASA to land its crew near Antarctica by the end of 2024, four years before the previous program. from NASA. He sent an astronaut to the surface of the moon.

NASA wants the Artemis program to lead to a longer lasting human presence on the moon than the Apollo program, which ended in the 1970s. For the Artemis program to last, NASA says crews or robots should extract and use resources like ice from the moon instead of looking for all the materials they need from Earth.

“How do we create a sustainable program?” Bridenstein said: “We should use hundreds of millions of tons of water ice on the moon.” “Air to breathe and water to drink,” he said, and it could also be turned into rocket fuel.

Therefore, all of this is possible with hundreds of millions of tons at the south pole of the Moon. We must be able to use it as a resource.

Precious metals from the moon can also be mined with helium-3, which can be used as an energy source.

Bridenstein stated that the problem of extraterrestrial mining was non-partisan, but the use of resources from other planets raised concerns.

“It’s a way of replicating our shameful and ecologically destructive history without explicitly saying that we plan to make the future in space different from the past on Earth,” wrote Emily Lakdwala of the Planetary Society. .

Clive Neal, a lunar scientist at the University of Notre Dame, has expressed support for NASA’s initiative for a new lunar soil. However, he tweeted that the Environmental Impact Statement, a standard part of many construction projects in the United States, should be an early stage for proposals to extract and use lunar resources.

“The moon has no valuable resources to sell on Earth, so there is no risk of companies blowing up and destroying the moon until it approaches the year 2100,” wrote Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at the university’s college, On twitter. Central Florida, including planetary soil sampling in the research experience. “You can get everything on this planet a million times cheaper.

Metzger added: “Second, we don’t have the technology to mine the moon on a large scale.” It will take 30 to 40 years to develop the technology * just * for a large lunar mining project to be economically viable. The key is to reduce the need for humans to fix broken robots. “

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstein. Credit: Isis Valencia / Spaceflight Now

President Trump signed an Executive Order in April outlining a policy that the United States does not view space as the “global commons.” The order strengthened the Act of 2015, signed by President Obama, which gives American citizens and businesses the right to mine and use resources extracted from other institutions in space.

This policy violates the 1979 Lunar Treaty which states that the Moon and its natural resources are “the common heritage of mankind.” The Lunar Treaty added that there is a need for an international framework to control the exploitation of lunar resources “when this exploitation is possible.”

However, only 18 parties to the 1979 Moon Treaty did not sign or ratify the United States, China and Russia.

Bridenstein said Friday that NASA wants to have a “strong legal framework based on international law” that allows individuals and businesses to pursue private interests on the Moon.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure we have a code of conduct that says we can extract the resources and do it in a way that’s consistent with the space treaty,” Bridenstein said. “And we do it in a way that people can’t interfere with their efforts to extract those resources.”

Earlier this year, NASA outlined the Artemis Accords, a principle the organization’s international partners in lunar exploration are expected to follow. The principles include peaceful exploration of the Moon, transparency, interoperability, emergency support enterprises, registration of space objects, and dissemination of scientific data.

“These codes of conduct have ultimately become binding international law,” Bridenstein said. “This is a fiery road. I think the United States should lead here. Then, these codes of conduct will ultimately affect international laws that guarantee the long-term sustainability of the spaces ”.

Some scientists have questioned how NASA will implement planetary protection guidelines in the age of mining and other unregulated commercial activities in space. Planetary protection is focused on preventing spaceships and ultimately humans from interfering in areas where extraterrestrial life could exist. The guidelines are stricter on a world like Mars than on the Moon.

In July, NASA announced an end to planetary protection requirements for missions that land at most sites on the Moon. Areas around the poles with water ice and historic Apollo landing sites will fall into the category of higher levels of planetary protection.

Bridenstein said Thursday that NASA is not a regulator, but it can set expectations for private companies.

“If you want to be with us when we go to the moon, or if you want to be a private company that can hire NASA as a client, or if you want to accompany us when we go to Mars, there are specific procedures, as Bridenstein said,“ You have to comply.

The RFP announced by NASA on Thursday will be open to US and international companies. According to agency spokeswoman Stephanie Sherholz, the program ends on October 9 and NASA may award more than one award.

The award-winning company collects lunar soil or rocks from anywhere on the moon’s surface and provides NASA with an image of the collected material along with the collected data and the data that determines where the material was captured. The company then transfers ownership of the sample to NASA on the moon.

Bridenstine said Thursday that NASA expects to pay between $ 15,000 and $ 25,000 for 50 to 500 grams of lunar soil. The final price, according to Schierholz, is determined by the result of the competition.

If a company collects more than 500 grams, the rest can be sold to other countries, companies or individuals, Bridenstine said. There may be another competition for companies to collect lunar soil and sell it to NASA.

In 2018, NASA created the Lunar Payload Services Program to host a series of contests in which companies bid for contracts to transport scientific instruments to the moon. NASA has selected 14 US companies eligible for CLPS contracts and four robotic landing missions have so far been awarded to the surface of the Moon.

The first CLPS missions in development by Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines are expected to launch in 2021.

Eligibility for the Lunar Soil Challenge announced Thursday is not limited to CLPS providers. Bridenstein said US companies and other international organizations could submit bids.

“What we are trying to do is create a code of conduct to create regulatory certainty so that offshore companies can take advantage of these programs and move forward,” Bridenstein said. We are trying to demonstrate the concept that resources can be mined and traded. It can be negotiated not only between companies or individuals, but also between countries and borders.

Said, “I would say the starting point is ice water.” “Many private companies will go looking for this water ice and then they will sell it to us as an agency or another private company that uses the month as a destination for all kinds of different jobs.”

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