NASA sets out to buy moon resources mined by private companies
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[September 11, 2020]
By Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - NASA on Thursday
launched an effort to pay companies to mine resources on the moon,
announcing it would buy from them rocks, dirt and other lunar materials
as the U.S. space agency seeks to spur private extraction of coveted
off-world resources for its use.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote in a blog post accompanying the
announcement that the plans would not violate a 1967 treaty that holds
that celestial bodies and space are exempt from national claims of
ownership.
The initiative, targeting companies that plan to send robots to mine
lunar resources, is part of NASA's goal of setting what Bridenstine
called "norms of behavior" in space and allowing private mining on the
moon in ways that could help sustain future astronaut missions. NASA
said it views the mined resources as the property of the company, and
the materials would become "the sole property of NASA" after purchase.
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Under NASA's Artemis program, President Donald Trump's administration
envisions a return of American astronauts to the moon by 2024. NASA has
cast such as mission as a precursor to a future first human voyage to
Mars.
"The bottom line is we are going to buy some lunar soil for the purpose
of it demonstrating that it can be done," Bridenstine said during an
event hosted by the Secure World Foundation, a space policy
organization.
Bridenstine said NASA eventually would buy more types of resources such
as ice and other materials that may be discovered on the moon.
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![](../images/091120pics/news_L23.jpg)
A woman photographs the Pink Supermoon over mountain Smetovi, during
an astronomical event that occurs when the moon is closest to the
Earth in its orbit, making it appear much larger and brighter than
usual, in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, April 7, 2020.
REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo
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NASA in May set the stage for a global debate over the basic
principles governing how people will live and work on the moon,
releasing the main tenets of what it hopes will become an
international pact for moon exploration called the Artemis Accords.
This would permit companies to own the lunar resources they mine, a
crucial element in allowing NASA contractors to convert the moon's
water ice for rocket fuel or mine lunar minerals to construct
landing pads.
Under the initiative disclosed on Thursday, NASA offered to purchase
limited amounts of lunar resources and asked companies to offer
proposals. Under contracts whose terms would vary, a company mining
on the moon would collect lunar rocks or dirt to sell to NASA
without having to bring the resources back to Earth.
"This is one small step for space resources, but a giant leap for
policy and precedent," Mike Gold, NASA's chief of international
relations, told Reuters.
"They are paying the company to sell them a rock that the company
owns. That's the product," Joanne Gabrynowicz, former
editor-in-chief of the Journal of Space Law, said in an interview.
"A company has to decide for itself if it's worth taking the
financial and technological risk to do this to sell a rock."
(Reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
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