Many attendees said during the three-day conference held August 24-26 in Houston that the October deadline was too short to put a business deal together, but at least one company or consortium may be courting a deal with the space agency.
Daniel Tam, the NASA administrators special assistant for commercialization, said he had received a written proposal from one group, though he declined to elaborate further, saying there was "interest" in financing the module.
NASA officials met with several conference participants in private breakout sessions to discuss possible financing deals during the conference.
Tam said he would like to have a preliminary business arrangement from an interested party by September 17. After that, he plans on starting a working session to hammer out a more definite plan until mid-October.
"Well get the right people in a room with no window and we wont let them out until they agree or agree to quit and cut the loss," he said jokingly.
Tam also addressed concerns raised by Robert Bigelow, the Las Vegas-based multimillionaire owner of Budget Suites of America and Bigelow Aerospace.
Bigelow has previously announced tentative plans to build a $500 million cruise ship to carry passengers to the Moon.
He said Tuesday that building the ship is still a dream of his and may be built in the next 15 years. Bigelow also attended some of the breakout sessions with NASA officials.
In his presentation, Bigelow sharply criticized NASA for not engaging the public directly and that commercialization of space is not really part of the space agencys culture.
"What kind of selectively funded agency is NASA?" Bigelow asked. "Except for a select few, spaceflights are few and expensive."
But Tam said the agency was working on changing the attitude toward commercialization.
"Were going to have to change things quicker," Tam said. "What we need are some success stories. Success breeds success."
Tam said interested parties need to remember building the module wont be business as usual for the agency.
"This wont be the traditional procurement with a set of requirements and bids," he said to attendees. "Where we want to go, we cannot go without you guys."
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