NASA is going to fund to research to one day send humans back to the moon, but for prices vastly lower than previously estimated.
The National Space Society (NSS) and Space Frontier Foundation (SFF) announced the research, the NexGen Space study, in a press release Sunday, stating future missions would rely heavily on commercial companies like SpaceX.
The NSS and SFF stated previous estimations put the price of going to the moon was $100 billion, but the new study outlines a method to do it for just 10 percent that cost.
"The Space Frontier Foundation supports and recommends public-private partnerships in all proposed human spaceflight programs in order to reduce costs and enable these missions that were previously unaffordable," Jeff Feige, the SFF's Chairman of the Board, said in the release. "This is the way that America will settle the final frontier, save taxpayers money and usher in a new era of economic growth and STEM innovation."
Sending astronauts to the moon could serve multiple purposes, such as making a future trip to Mars cheaper, as well as the development of a lunar base.
As the Verge pointed out, SpaceX could play a role in such missions, given their overall track record of success in flying unmanned resupply missions to the International Space Station. SpaceX also aspires to ferry astronauts to the low-orbit science lab by the end of the year 2017.
"The NSS congratulates NASA for funding the team at NexGen that discovered how such cost reductions are possible," NSS Executive Committee Chair Mark Hopkins said in the release. "A factor of ten reduction in cost changes everything."
