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The US space agency announces contracts awarded to four companies to collect earth from the moon for $ 1 to $ 15,000.
NASA will pay a company just one dollar to collect lunar samples for the US space agency.
NASA announced Thursday that it awarded contracts to four companies to collect land from the Moon for between $ 1 and $ 15,000, rock-bottom prices that are set to set a precedent for future exploitation of space resources by the private sector.
Contracts are with Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colorado for $ 1; ispace Japan of Tokyo for $ 5,000; ispace Europe of Luxembourg for $ 5,000; and Masten Space Systems of Mojave, California for $ 15,000.
“I think it’s amazing that we can buy lunar regolith from four companies for a total of $ 25,001,” said Phil McAlister, director of NASA’s Commercial Space Flight Division.
The companies plan to carry out the collection during already scheduled unmanned missions to the Moon in 2022 and 2023.
Firms must collect a small amount of lunar soil, known as regolith, from the Moon and provide NASA images of the collection and collected material.
Ownership of the lunar soil will be transferred to NASA and will become “the exclusive property of NASA for the agency’s use under the Artemis program.”
Under the program, NASA plans to land a human on the Moon by 2024 and lay the foundation for sustainable exploration and an eventual mission to Mars.
“Precedent is a very important part of what we are doing today,” said Mike Gold, NASA’s acting associate administrator for international and interagency relations.
“We believe that it is very important to set the precedent that private sector entities can extract, can take these resources, but NASA can buy them and use them to drive not only NASA activities, but a dynamic new era of public development and exploration. and private on the moon. “
The companies plan to carry out the collection during unmanned missions already scheduled to the Moon in 2022 and 2023 [File: NASA/Central Press/Getty Images]
Any lesson learned on the Moon would be crucial for an eventual mission to Mars.
“The human mission to Mars will be even more demanding and challenging than our lunar operations, which is why it is so critical to learn from our experiences on the Moon and apply those lessons to Mars,” Gold said.
The United States seeks to set a precedent because there is currently no international consensus on property rights in space.
China and Russia have not reached an understanding with the United States on the issue.
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is vague, but considers that outer space “is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, through use or occupation, or by any other means.”
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