Important Innovations Collection

NASA Recruiting Companies to Mine the Moon Source:  Full Moon Stock Image Moon Commercial Exploration About to Expand NASA wants to mine the Moon. And to do so, it just announced that it's looking for companies to do lunar mining.  This is a bold bid by NASA to start the commercial development of the Moon.  The initial purpose is to help US astronauts establish permanent bases on the Moon and "live off the land".  And, then for NASA to move forward to Mars where astronauts would need to live off the resources available there. The new program to find valuable resources on the Moon and later Mars is part of NASA's Artemis Project and it is open to international companies. International Companies Encouraged to Participate NASA is looking for private companies, that are already part of space explorations, to collect rocks and dirt from the lunar surface and sell them to NASA, as part of a technology development project.  NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted: "...

Tiny Rovers, Tiny Payloads, Tiny Instruments Source:  NASA Big Science: NASA Wants Tiny Science Payloads NASA has plans to send tiny robotic rovers to the Moon.  In order to do this, NASA needs to develop miniature scientific payloads for the tiny rovers.  NASA is formally asking the public for their ideas. Game Changing Science This is not fun and games. NASA expects the winning ideas that come through this public process  will be game changing  They believe the smaller payloads will result in a series of miniaturized instruments and sensors that can quickly be used for lunar exploration and for harvesting the resources  found there. Crowdsourcing NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab has launched a crowdsourcing project on HeroX.  It's called "Honey, I shrunk the NASA payload".  Specifically, NASA is looking for small instrument design concepts to sustain human life on the Moo...