The group, which met throughout the 1960s, focused mainly on lunar resources.

Under the initiative disclosed on Thursday, NASA offered to purchase limited amounts of lunar resources and asked companies to offer proposals.

Ispace, and other organizations with their eyes on lunar resources, are looking to develop both the Moon and an economy around it.

It cites Moon Express, Inc. and the Shackleton Energy Company as two corporations with plans to extract lunar resources for further space exploration.