US President Donald Trump appears to have considered the money-making potential of mining the moon, according to internal communication between his transition team and the country's space agency, NASA.
Since taking office, Trump has sought to slash the budget of a number of environmental agencies but has largely left NASA alone, and even signed a recent bill to continue funding much of the space agency, according to news.com.au.
That might be because the administration seems to be very interested in NASA's money-making potential, reports Motherboard.
Internal communication between Trump's team and NASA, obtained and published by the website on Thursday, shows the White House quizzed NASA on the commercial potential of the moon.
Specifically, the administration asked about the process NASA goes through to make commercial products with industry and the agency's plan to survey the moon for useful raw materials and evaluate the potential for extraction.