听From Colorado Public Radio - Colorado听Matters:听Two Colorado companies are getting into the delivery business.听Not the two-day delivery kind, more like the 238,900-mile听outer space听kind.听NASA is听听to take their experiments to the lunar surface. Two of the nine approved bidders are Lockheed Martin and听.听听is a well-known industry titan, while Deep Space Systems is a Littleton-based company with just 65 employees.
The "Commercial Lunar Payload Services" contracts are part of President Donald Trump's听.听The increased traffic to the moon will also practice technology and techniques needed to bring large vehicles and astronauts to Mars.
"Mars is very, very hard to get to," said听CU Boulder Professor听Jack Burns, who also听served on President Trump's transition team for NASA. "The Moon, on the other hand, is nearby. It's only three days away, and the technologies are in hand to begin developing it and to听learn how to live and work on an alien, hostile body."