NASA patented a faster, cheaper route to the moon. The firstspacecraft to use it could make Nobel Prize-winning discoveries about the universe.

In article ,
says...

"On June 30, the US Patent and Trademark Office granted and published NASA's
patent for a series of orbital maneuvers, which Business Insider first learned
about via a tweet by a lawyer named Jeff Steck.

The technique isn't meant for large spaceships that carry astronauts or rovers,
but for smaller, more tightly budgeted missions tasked with doing meaningful
science. And the first spacecraft to take advantage of this new orbital path could
deliver unprecedented discoveries from the far side of the moon.

Called the Dark Ages Polarimeter Pathfinder, or Dapper, the upcoming mission aims
to record, for the first time, low-frequency radio waves emitted during the
earliest epochs of the universe ? when atoms, stars, black holes, and galaxies
were just beginning to form, and where scientists may detect the first signals of
as-yet-unseen dark matter."

See:

https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa...rk-ages-2020-8

While I think it's bizarre that the patent office would grant a patent
for such a thing, I'm glad it's NASA that patented it. Their patent
fees are reportedly very reasonable, so hopefully commercial companies
could make use of this technique without much expense.

Jeff
--
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