NASA Purchasing Moon Dust For $1 To $15,000

NASA Purchasing Moon Dust For $1 To $15,000

NASA – The National Aeronautics and Space Administration recently awarded contracts to four fims to collect moon samples for $1 up to $15,000.

The said price range are rock-bottom prices that are intended to set a precedent for future exploitation for resources by the private sector, according to a report from Manila Bulletin.

“I think it’s kind of amazing that we can buy lunar regolith from four companies for a total of $25,001,” 

This came from a statement from NASA’s Commercial Spaceflight Division director Phil McAlister.

The contracts are with the said four firms, identified as 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.

The firms aim to carry out the collection during the already scheduled unmanned missions to the mon in the years 2022 and 2023.

They are to collect a small amount of lunar soil known as regolith from the Moon and to provide imagery to the space agency of the collection and the collected material.

The ownership of the said soil will then be transferred to the agency and will become the “sole property of NASA for the agency’s use under the Artemis program.”

Based on the report, the agency aims to land a man and a woman on the Moon by 2024 and lay groundwork for sustainable exploration and a mission to Mars under the Artemis program.

Acting associate administrator for international and interagency relations Mike Gold said that the precedent is a very vital part of what they were going to do today.

“We think it’s very important to establish the precedent that the private sector entities can extract, can take these resources but NASA can purchase and utilize them to fuel not only NASA’s activities, but a whole new dynamic era of public and private development and exploration on the Moon,”

“We must learn to generate our own water, air and even fuel,”

“Living off the land will enable ambitious exploration activities that will result in awe inspiring science and unprecedented discoveries.”

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