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NASA took a heavily qualified, oblique, indirect step on Tuesday, toward contracting with private companies to send scientific payloads to the surface of the Moon, beginning as early as next year. The agency put out a Asking For Information for a "Modest Lunar Surface Payload" program, and the request acknowledges the ability of US commercial outfits to develop lunar probes or landers. NASA hasn't committed to funding the projects yet, and in fact they're pretty emphatic about "cost-sharing." Only this may be a signal the agency is interested in a wider program to explore the Moon.

The Request For Information reads, in part:

The National Aeronautics and Space Assistants'southward (NASA) Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) is seeking information on the availability of small payloads that could be delivered to the Moon as early on as the 2017-2020 timeframe using U.Southward. commercial lunar cargo transportation service providers. Multiple U.S. companies are developing robotic lunar landing capabilities and have expressed plans to provide commercial cargo commitment services to the Moon in the virtually hereafter. Information on lunar payloads that could be launched as early on as 2017 would be valuable to NASA equally it works to sympathise the potential role of the Moon in future exploration activities.

It's too early to crow "We're goin' back to the moon!" just withal, but this is conspicuously aimed in the direction of more manned lunar exploration.

Apollo 8 Moon Earth Blue Marble 1968

The iconic Earthrise photograph, shot by the crew of Apollo 8.

One clue to NASA's motive is the person they chose to deliver the announcement. John Guidi is the deputy director of their avant-garde exploration systems division, which is itself a part of NASA'due south homo spaceflight segmentation. "NASA is asking for information about small instruments that could be placed on modest lunar landers," said Guidi, "and our interest is that nosotros want to accost our strategic cognition gaps."

NASA's strategic knowledge gaps about the moon can exist filled with bones enquiry almost the availability of key resources on the lunar surface, including h2o ice. Also important is a good sense of how the lunar surround will affect humans who spend any significant time on the moon.

In response to NASA'south overture toward private enterprise, one interested outfit — a lunar exploration projection called Moon Express — responded publicly with its own proposal. "The Moon Limited Lunar Scout Plan is designed to expand our partnership with NASA and support the lunar science community with new, low-cost lunar orbiter and surface missions," the company founder and chief executive, Bob Richards, told Ars Technica. "Our goal is to plummet the toll of access to the Moon to enable a new era of lunar exploration and evolution for students, scientists and commercial interests."

Moon Express is working with the United states of america government to behave out commercial operations on the moon. Basically, they want to mine information technology. The site quotes Richards, in all caps considering all caps means information technology's content, every bit saying that "H2o IS THE OIL OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM, AND THE MOON HAS BECOME A GAS STATION IN THE Heaven."

Information technology's not exactly a Kickstarter or a bake auction, but NASA is sort of piggybacking on individual enterprise, as if the private sector were an icebreaker send headed for the Northwest Passage to Mars.