NASA Buying Private Lunar Data

NASA has contracted with six teams involved in the Google Lunar X-Prize to purchase technical and scientific data gathered by the teams. The base contracts are tiny in monetary value-- $10,000-- but that could rocket to as much as $10 million, depending on the data being sold.

The awards are being seen as a signal from NASA that it's open to relying on private companies to obtain at least some of the data needed to carry out its own deep-space exploration mission. If that is the case, an exciting new business sector-- space exploration for profit-- becomes a possibility. Such an industry might have an economic model similar to the old wildcat oil exploration companies. Large aerospace firms may well have corporate units in the field. but there would also be room for small, independent companies. Most of those small companies will fail, some will merge to stay alive, and a few could hit it very, very big. They could become the first players in a truly space based economy.