NASA Interim Directives Announced at Moon Dialogs Event

Thursday, July 9, 2020

Opening remarks for the fourth Moon Dialog research salon were provided by Jim Bridenstine, followed by a regulatory and policy roundtable featuring Mike Gold, Tanja Masson-Zwaan, Lindy Elkins-Tanton and Alan Stern. During the event, two NASA Interim Directives (NIDs) were announced detailing new requirements for human and robotic missions traveling to and from the moon and Mars. 

One of the newly announced NIDs addresses the potential issue of forward biological contamination — contamination brought from Earth to another planetary object — on future moon missions. The second NID deals with Mars and covers both forward and backward contamination (the type brought to Earth from another cosmic body). 

The Moon Dialogs project is a collaboration between Open Lunar Foundation, Secure World Foundation, the MIT Space Exploration Initiative, Arizona State University, and For All Moonkind. 

For more information, please visit the event page.