NASA invites companies to collect Moon “dirt” or rocks and sell it to the U.S. space agency

Washington, DC, 10 September 2020. – NASA invitations industrial firms to gather small quantities of Moon “grime” or rocks and hand it out to the U.S. area company, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine stated on Thursday in a weblog.

“The necessities we’ve outlined are that an organization will gather a small quantity of Moon ‘grime’ or rocks from any location on the lunar floor, present imagery to NASA of the gathering and the collected materials, together with knowledge that identifies the gathering location, and conduct an ‘in-place’ switch of possession of the lunar regolith or rocks to NASA,” Bridenstine stated. “After possession switch, the collected materials turns into the only real property of NASA for our use,” he stated. “NASA’s purpose is that the retrieval and switch of possession can be accomplished earlier than 2024.”

The solicitation creates a full and open competitors, not restricted to U.S. firms, and the company might make a number of awards, Bridenstine stated.  NASA would pay as much as $50,000 for the Moon materials, an company official stated on a panel of the Safe World Basis’s Summit for House Sustainability on Thursday.

“As we at NASA are working aggressively to fulfill our near-term purpose of touchdown the primary girl and subsequent man on the Moon by 2024, our Artemis program additionally is targeted on taking steps that can set up a protected and sustainable lunar exploration structure. Furthermore, leveraging industrial involvement as a part of Artemis will improve our capacity to securely return to the Moon in a sustainable, revolutionary, and reasonably priced trend,” Bridenstine defined in his weblog.

“Over the subsequent decade, the Artemis program will lay the inspiration for a sustained long-term presence on the lunar floor and use the Moon to validate deep area methods and operations earlier than embarking on the a lot farther voyage to Mars,” he stated. “The power to conduct in-situ sources utilization (ISRU) can be extremely essential on Mars, which is why we should proceed with alacrity to develop methods and acquire expertise with ISRU on the floor of the Moon. The scientific discoveries gained by way of strong, sustainable, and protected lunar exploration will profit all of humanity. By persevering with to publicly launch our knowledge, NASA will guarantee the entire world joins us and advantages from the Artemis journey.”