NASA recently announced that four companies have been contracted to sell lunar regolith to NASA. In a move that would seem bizarre if you don't account for the power of legal precedent, The plan is for the companies to go to the Moon and formally grab regolith, which they will not return to Earth. Rather, having grabbed it, they will transfer ownership to NASA for a token fee, that in one case is precisely $1.
What's going on here?
Jim Bridenstine, NASA Administrator when the announcement was made, said straight out that the point was to establish a precedent that private companies can extract and sell space resources.