NASA has made an agreement with Bigelow Aerospace for the implementation of private space ventures, including the possible construction of a base on the moon.
Getting to the moon is a high priority of Bigelow Aerospace. Billionaire founder Robert Bigelow recently stated during an interview that the company is working toward a lunar base along with space stations or refueling deposits located at certain points in the Earth-moon system.
"As part of our broader commercial space strategy, NASA signed a Space Act Agreement with Bigelow Aerospace to foster ideas about how the private sector can contribute to future human missions." NASA associate administrator for communications David Weaver said in a statement to NBC News. "This will provide important information on possible ways to expand our exploration capabilities in partnership with the private sector."
Despite the agreement, NASA is still intent on pursuing its own objectives of capturing an asteroid and going to Mars.
"The agency is intensely focused on a bold mission to identify, relocate and explore an asteroid with American astronauts by 2025 - all as we prepare for an even more ambitious human mission to Mars in the 2030s," Weaver said. "NASA has no plans for a human mission to the moon."
Bigelow Aerospace falls in line with other private space exploration companies like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp., who are involved in supply missions to the International Space Station. Washington-based spokesman for Bigelow Aerospace Mike Gold said that the company will build on these efforts.
"What this is doing is projecting that forward, and exploring what commercial companies can do both to lower the cost of beyond-LEO operations, and to create enhanced capabilities," Gold said.
The agreement with NASA, which was signed in March, asks Bigelow Aerospace to describe possible contributions to space exploration.
"First, we'll be identifying what the companies and technologies are that could contribute, and we'll be examining what some of those specific mission scenarios might be," Gold said.
Bigelow Aerospace launched two inflatable space modules aboard Russian launch vehicles in 2006 and 2007. The company made a deal with NASA in January to send a larger module called the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module or BEAM to the International Space Station in 2015 with the aid of SpaceX.
