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NASA's Moon Base Shopping List Includes a Nuclear Rover and Several Delivery Fees
· New York time
NASA has announced awards and mission updates for its Moon Base work, including commercial robotic deliveries, launch and orbital transfer services, surface infrastructure and a nuclear-powered rover named PROMISE. The agency says the investments support its effort to establish a sustained lunar presence with American industry. The awards cover several pieces of a large undertaking rather than a finished base. Equipment must be transported, delivered and supported on the surface before a lasting presence can become routine. The rover and delivery projects illustrate how the agency is dividing that work among technologies and services. It is an ambitious plan with a distinctly familiar administrative shape: a long list of things to buy, move and coordinate before anyone can enjoy the property. On Earth, a missed delivery is inconvenient. On the Moon, the distance makes a reliable transportation plan a rather more important part of the purchase. NASA's announcement presents the projects as steps toward exploration, science and infrastructure, not as proof that the entire neighborhood has already been built. PROMISE has an appropriately optimistic name for a rover on that list. The remaining challenge is to make the transportation and surface systems work together well enough that the lunar address can eventually receive regular visitors.
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