The era of commercial space mining begins

Abstract

In early September, NASA announced a gread breaking solution NASA wants to buy lunar regolith extracted by a private company. In order to spur commercial space resources technology, NASA’s procurement is for the purchase of 50-500 grams of lunar regolith, or rock materials, from the surface of the Moon. After collecting the lunar material, establishing commercial ownership of it, and photographing it, the selected contractor(s) will transfer ownership to NASA in-place on the Moon.