Nasa to pay $1 to collect rocks from moon
- by Carmen Reese
- in Science
- — Jan 22, 2021
The probe collected about 4 pounds of rock samples which should tell the history of the moon and the environmental changes that had occurred on the lunar planet for centuries.
The mining announcement came during the same week that China landed a spacecraft on the moon, extracted resources and then lifted off from the lunar surface in an effort to return the sample to Earth. It is located in the "Ocean of Storms" on the upper left side of the Moon facing the Earth.
The objective of China's mission to the Moon is to obtain and return to Earth some 4.4 pounds (2 kg) of lunar rock and soil.
Ispace Japan and Europe are charging $5,000 for moon samples, and Masten Space Systems of California is collecting $15,000.
The U.S. space agency announced Thursday that it had selected four companies to collect space resources and bring them back to NASA, including two U.S. firms, one Japanese company, and one company based in Luxembourg.
"You'd be surprised at what a dollar can buy you in space", Mike Gold, NASA's acting associate administrator for worldwide and interagency relations, said in a call with reporters.
The Chang'e-5 spacecraft has accomplished a number of firsts for Beijing, including the first extraterrestrial takeoff and first independent placement of a Chinese flag on an extraterrestrial body.
The landing site is close to a form called the Mons rumbler and may contain rocks billions of years younger than previously restored.
Chang'e 5 deployed its solar antenna shortly after arriving, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) reported.
- The ascender is expected to complete the unmanned rendezvous and docking with the orbiter-returner in lunar orbit, an unprecedented feat. Touchdown is planned for the grasslands of inner Mongolia, where Chinese astronauts have returned in the Shenzhou spacecraft.
Although its main task was to retrieve the samples, the lander was equipped to take detailed photographs of the landscape and to analyze ground conditions by radar penetrating below the surface and lunar soil analysis for minerals and water contents below the surface.
Under President Xi Jinping, plans for China's "space dream", as he calls it, have been put into overdrive.
China's taikonauts and scientists have also talked up crewed missions to Mars.
While China is boosting co-operation with the European Space Agency and others, interactions with NASA are severely limited by US concerns over the secretive nature and close military links of the Chinese program.
