NASA can cut the cost of establishing a human presence on the Moon by utilizing existing partnerships with commercial service providers like SpaceX and Boeing, said Charles Miller, NexGen president and the study’s lead author.
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This news came into public with the announcement of the news on July 20 over the 46th anniversary of the Apollo 11’s foot hold on the moon’s surface.
A permanent settlement on Moon is neither more than a decade away nor too expensive a proposition for NASA, a new study funded by the space agency itself has revealed.
The plan includes sending rovers that could scrutinize the lunar poles for hydrogen in 2018 and then scientists could start prospecting by 2019 or 2020.
As per the reports, it is suggested that a machine engineered process is on the way and the landing may happen as soon as 2017 if and only NASA goes by the terms. SpaceX – the private space exploration firm backed by Elon Musk – now charges $4,750 (£3,055, €4,328) per kilogram of supplies to send to the global Space Stations (ISS) – much less than the $46,000 per kg that it cost for the Saturn V which was used to get to the moon in the late 60s. SpaceX claims that its Falcon Heavy will be far cheaper per kilogram than the Falcon 9.
NASA is already planning to go back to the moon with its next generation rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), but there are no plans to land.
“The Space Frontier Foundation supports and recommends public-private partnerships in all proposed human spaceflight programs in order to reduce costs and enable these missions that were previously unaffordable”, said the Space Frontier Foundation’s Chairman of the Board, Jeff Feige.
The study also states that such a permanent commercial lunar base might eventually pay for its operations by exporting propellant to lunar orbit for sale to NASA and others to send humans to Mars, thus enabling the economic development of the Moon at a small marginal cost.
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The study was vetted by a 21-person independent review team of former members of NASA’s administration, members of the commercial spaceflight community, and four former NASA astronauts.
