NASA is enlisting private firms to help get Americans back on the Moon
“To accelerate our return to the Moon, we are challenging our traditional ways of doing business. We will streamline everything from procurement to partnerships to hardware development and even operations,” said Marshall Smith, director for human lunar exploration programs at NASA Headquarters,In this July 20, 1969 file photo, astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. walks on the surface of the moon.
Over the next six months, the private space firms chosen will use their millions to study or develop prototypes that will support NASA’s Gateway space station plan. The idea is that Gateway will be an orbiting platform for missions down to the surface. So the agency needs ideas on how the astronauts get off the station and into low lunar orbit, how they descend to and land on the surface and ascend back up again and how to refuel any craft used so they can be reused.
“We’re taking major steps to begin development as quickly as possible, including invoking a NextSTEP option that allows our partners to begin work while we’re still negotiating,” said Greg Chavers, human landing system formulation manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
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