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Washington Washington (AFP)
The US space agency NASA on Thursday awarded contracts to four companies to collect lunar samples ranging from થી 1 to ,000 15,000, aimed at setting a precedent for future exploitation of space resources by the private sector.
“I think it’s a surprise that we can buy lunar regoliths from four companies for a total of 25,001,” said Phil McCluster, director of NASA’s commercial spaceflight division.
Contracts are in, 1 with Golden, Colorado’s Moon Outpost; Espace Japan Tok 5,000 in Tokyo; Luxembourg 5,000 in Luxembourg space Europe; And Masten Space Systems Mojave, California for 15,000.
The companies plan to store in 2022 and 2023 during pre-scheduled unmanned missions to the moon.
These companies are to collect a small amount of lunar clay from the moon called Regolith and will provide an image of the collection NASA and the stored material.
Ownership of Lunar Soil will then be transferred to NASA and it will become “NASA’s only asset for agency use under the Artemis program.”
Under the Artemis program, NASA plans to land a man and a woman on the moon by 2024 and conduct Mars sustainable research and eventually a mission.
“The example is a very important part of what we are doing today,” said Mike Gold, NASA’s executive associate administrator for international and interpersonal relations.
“We believe that it is important for private sector organizations to establish the ancestry that can take these resources, but not just NASA’s activities, but to buy and use a whole new dynamic era of public and private development and exploration. “The moon,” Gold said.
“We must learn to produce our own water, air and even fuel,” he said. “Leaving the land will enable ambitious research activities that will amaze science and unprecedented discoveries.”
Any lessons learned on the moon will be crucial for the final mission to Mars.
“Human missions to Mars will be even more demanding and challenging than our lunar actions, which is why it is so important to learn from our experiences on the moon and apply those lessons to Mars.”
“We want to make it clear that you can work, you can use resources, and we will do those activities in full compliance with the outer space treaty,” he said. “This is an important example. It is important for America to lead not only in technology, but also in policy.”
The United States wants to set an example, as there is currently no international consensus on property rights in space and China and Russia have not been able to reach an agreement with the United States on this issue.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty is vague but does not make external space “subject to national appropriation by claim to sovereignty, by use or by occupation, or in any other way.”
20 2020 AFP
