Odyssey Moon, announced today that it will purchase "design drawings, technical data and engineering support" from NASA over the coming 2 years in order to be the first private company to land on the moon. Odyssey Moon will pay $500,000 for this intellectual property and associated engineering support.Considering that the total cost of NASA's developments on the Modular Common Spacecraft Bus was reported at $4 million, at first glance, it appears that Odyssey Moon is obtaining a substantial advantage for the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP), having $3.5 million of its development costs paid by NASA.
Remember, the GLXP is supposed to be a privately funded mission with only 10% of funding coming from government sources. We at White Label Space, as a potential competitor in the GLXP, look forward to a clarification from the X PRIZE Foundation on how much of this $3.5 million will be considered as government support.
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3 comments:
My lay understanding:
Under Space Act: Anybody can purchase the same data at the same price (including you). NASA acts as consultant, charges full cost of service. NASA/USG accounting rules determine the amount charged by NASA/USG.
Data and IP are different.
NASA/USG IP (e.g. patents) are licensed under a defined process. Licenses can be either exclusive or non-exclusive depending on certain criteria. But I do not think that is the case here.
Hmmm... lots of food for thought. Thanks very much Charles for those comments.
I wonder how much of the $500,000 is for design information (which we should be eligable to purchase) and how much is for the 'engineering services' mentioned in the Odyssey Moon press release.
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