Privatizing the Moon Mission
May 1, 2020
NASA just awarded nearly $1 billion to three companies to start planning lunar landers needed for the agency to reach its goal of putting astronauts on the moon by 2024, with plans to pick one or more winners next year to begin building the spacecraft. This may be the fullest flower yet of private firms expanding their activities in the space business, a trend detailed in Issues by an analyst who presciently noted that the US government needed to adapt its policies to capitalize on their growing strengths.