NASA wants to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, but right now, astronauts have to be in direct line of sight with Earth to phone home.  The space agency is looking to change that with its developing Near Space Network, and it’s willing to pay potentially huge sums to private companies to help make continuous lunar communications a reality. Those plans got a boost today when NASA announced it had awarded Intuitive Machines a contract to build and deploy a satellite constellation capable of providing navigation and communications for future missions on or around the Moon.  The Houston-based company is best known for pulling off the first-ever private Moon landing in February. (That mission was cut short after the lander tripped on a rock and landed on its side, but it still counts.) The company sells a rideshare service to the Moon, but payloads can only transmit data when in direct line of sight with a ground station. The task order contract for the Lunar Relay has a maximum potential value of $4.82 …