New Delhi, Oct. 14 -- How can we stop astronauts from building up dangerous static electricity on the Moon? To find a solution, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched a crowdsourced initiative seeking innovative engineering ideas to address the problem. NASA calls it the "Lunar Grounding Challenge."

The space agency is offering up to $150,000 in prizes to whoever wins the 'Lunar Grounding Challenge.'

The US and NASA hope to land an American astronaut at the lunar South Pole in 2028 during the Artemis 4 or 5 missions. They fear risks involving "tribocharging" from walking on the lunar surface and "plasma charging" from the ambient plasma generating electric charge on the spacesuit.

"This problem is severely co...