NASA decided to pay a Colorado start-up Lunar Outpost $1 to collect rocks and dust from the moon.
On November 3, the Colorado-based robotics firm Lunar Outpost was considered as a winning bidder and awarded a contract by the space agency to collect rocks, dirt, soil – from the lunar south pole. The acting associate administrator Mike Gold said, “The companies will collect the samples and then provide us with visual evidence and other data that they’ve been collected.”
He added, “We think it’s very important to establish the precedent that private-sector entities can extract and take these resources, and NASA can purchase and utilize them to fuel not only NASA’s activities but a whole new dynamic era of public and private development in exploration on the moon and then, eventually, to Mars.” Previously, astronaut Peggy Whitson said, “If we’re going to spend long durations and build permanent habitats, we have to figure out how to handle that.” NASA said, “ISRU activities will be tested and developed on the Moon, building the required knowledge to implement new capabilities that will be necessary to overcome the challenges of a human mission to Mars.”
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