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Low balling
NASA has just entered into deals with four startups to purchase the moon dust they plan to collect during upcoming missions, and the space agency is paying the top dollar.
In fact, he’s paying one of the startups just a single dollar, an incredibly low price in the realm of space travel, where missions can easily handle billion-dollar boards.
The one dollar contract stands for a startup called Lunar Outpost, a Colorado startup, France Media Agency relationships. It’s unclear how Lunar Outpost got the short end of the stick – two other startups struck similar deals for $ 5,000 and a third for $ 15,000. But all four agreements share the same symbolic purpose: to show that private companies can mine lunar resources is that NASA will pay them to do it.
Symbolic contracts
By making the deals, NASA hopes to demonstrate that the extraction and use of lunar resources is allowed within the limits of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. AFP relationships.
“The precedent is a very important part of what we are doing today,” said NASA Associate Administrator for International Relations and Inter-agency. AFP.
“We believe it is very important to set the precedent that private sector entities can mine, they can take these resources but NASA can buy and use them to power not just NASA’s operations,” Gold added, “but a whole new era. dynamics of public and private development and exploration on the Moon “.
Test media
Encouraging startups to use the Moon’s resources is all part of a larger plan to reach Mars, Gold explained.
“We have to learn how to generate our water, air and even fuel,” Gold said AFP. “Living off the earth will allow for ambitious exploration activities that will result in impressive science and unprecedented discoveries.”
What is less clear is how any of the contractors will earn money from the firm. NASA is providing startups with payload space for what presumably will be robotic sample-collection equipment, but a paltry $ 15,000 – regardless of the $ 1 deal – wouldn’t come close to covering development costs.
One possible answer: Just signing a deal with NASA will provide legitimacy for small space companies, allowing them to pursue other profitable deals.
READ MORE: NASA buys moon dust for $ 1 [Agence France-Presse]
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