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NASA Pays A Company $ 1 to Mine Rocks From the Moon

The US space agency NASA pays a company $ 1 to collect rock samples from the moon.

 

An extremely low price but an important symbolic step, intended to pave the way for the commercial exploitation of space resources.

The American company Lunar Outpost and the European company ispace, together with two other companies, have won contracts to mine regolith, a mixture of dust, grit, minerals, clay, glass and chunks of rock found on the shallow of the moon.

NASA requires pieces of “moonstone” between 50 and 500 grams in weight.

Lunar Outpost receives 1 dollar for this, the other companies a little more – the contracts are worth a total of 25,001 dollars.

“The companies will collect the samples and provide us with visual evidence of it and other data,” a spokesperson explained to the BBC. The material is then transferred to the space agency.

The amount that the companies get is so low because they are only paid for the regolith and not for the astronomical costs of the development of making the trip to the moon or the necessary transportation.

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