NASA seeking explorers for mining on the moon, all nationalities welcome

NASAon 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 USspace agency seeks to spur private extraction of coveted off-world resources for its use.

NASAAdministrator 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.

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FILE PHOTO:NASAAdministrator Jim Bridenstine speaks about the upcoming year's budget during an address to the workers atNASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USMarch 11, 2019/REUTERS

The initiative, targeting companies that plan to send robots to mine lunar resources, is part ofNASA's goal of setting what Bridenstine called "norms of behavior" in space and allowing private mining on the moon in waysthat could helpsustain future astronaut missions.

NASAsaid it views the mined resources as the property of the company, and the materials would become "the sole property ofNASA" after purchase.

UnderNASA's Artemis program, President Donald Trump's administration envisions a return of American astronauts to the moon by 2024.NASAhas 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 saidNASAeventuallywould buy more types of resources such as ice and other materials that may be discovered on the moon.

NASAin 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 allowingNASAcontractors to convert the moon's water ice for rocket fuel or mine lunar minerals to construct landing pads.

Under the initiative disclosed on Thursday,NASAoffered 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 toNASAwithout having to bring the resources back to Earth.

"This is one small step for space resources, but a giant leap for policy and precedent," saidMike Gold,NASA's chief of international relations.

"They are paying the company to sell them a rock that the company owns. That's the product," Joanne Gabrynowicz, formereditor-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."