Main Engine Cut OffNASA Selects Companies for Lunar Regolith Purchases
NASA announced the selections for which companies would be tasked with collecting lunar regolith and transferring ownership to NASA in place:
NASA has selected four companies to collect space resources and transfer ownership to the agency: Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colorado; Masten Space Systems of Mojave, California; ispace Europe of Luxembourg; and ispace Japan of Tokyo. Overall, the new NASA contracts with these companies totals $25,001.
In terms of prices, that’s Masten at $15,000, the two ispace contracts at $5,000 each, and Lunar Outpost with a hilarious “One dollar, Bob” situation.
Because this program is more about setting precedent than actually generating useful science, technology, or infrastructure, in some ways I feel like this announcement alone is good enough, especially with 10% of the contracted price changing hands today.
It’s even more impactful that there are companies included from Luxembourg and Japan. The nations themselves aren’t a surprise, but the fact that this is more than just the US saying that this agreement is well within the legal framework of the Outer Space Treaty is important.