NASA has awarded a check for $0.10 — yes, ten cents — to a company named Lunar Outpost to collect resources from the lunar surface, the first-ever contract of its kind. The milestone could open the doors for commercial mining on the Moon. Geological surveys have shown that the Moon is home to three critical resources — water, the highly sought-after Helium-3 which is used in sectors such as nuclear fusion, and rare-earth metals (REMs) found in modern electronics. In case there are worries about depleting the Moon of resources as is being done on the Earth, rough calculations show that it will take over 200 years to deplete 1% of the moon’s mass in the form of resources. However, settling a colony of any kind on the Moon remains nothing more than a thought experiment.
But before commercial mining on the Earth’s lone natural satellite begins, claiming property rights on the moon is a hurdle, and it’s a topic that has been debated ever since the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty was signed. Plus, there are questions about environmental impact and a ton of ethical debates before the technical challenges of a large-scale mining operation on the Moon can even begin to take shape. So, for now, the only activities permissible are those conducted in the name of science such as collecting surface samples and setting up robotic labs. These are conducted either by space agencies directly or through private contractors such as SpaceX.
And this is where Lunar Outpost comes into the picture. In 2020, the company secured a contract with NASA to participate in the Artemis Program and harvest lunar surface samples. The bid, which was just a token amount, was a mere $1. Now, NASA has made its first payment of 10 cents, which is actually 10 percent of the total amount as per contract terms. The company will soon begin to collect regolith from a region near the Moon’s South Pole by using a wheel-mounted hopper on its MAPP (Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform) rover. To recall, Japan recently revealed plans to collect samples from Phobos, one of planet Mars' most well-known moons.
A Small Amount With Massive Opportunities For Space Commercialization
Lunar Outpost will collect roughly 100 grams worth of surface material and will then transfer its ownership to NASA, CEO Justin Cyrus was quoted as saying in a Space.com interview. The mission will fulfill this contractual obligation in Q4 2022, alongside delivering a 4G LTE payload to the Moon’s surface in partnership with Nokia and Intuitive Machines. These samples will play a role in performing key studies in preparation for the Artemis Program which aims to put man back on the lunar soil.
However, the more important takeaway is that the NASA-Lunar Outpost deal will help advance the legal and procedural frameworks for future space contracts and set an industry-wide precedent. SpaceX already has plans to ferry a crew to the moon, and Lunar Outpost aims to do something similar when it comes to mining resources on the Moon. The end goal is to show that there is a viable economic incentive for commercial space contracts of this type and that it will lay the groundwork for what NASA calls an inevitable “gold rush” for commercial opportunities in space.
Source: Lunar Outpost, Space.com