NASA is accelerating plans to set up a nuclear reactor to the Moon by the end of the decade, to power bases there and help America be the first nation to have an energy base powered by 24/7 nuclear power on the Moon and win the “second space race” with Russia and China.
Back in 2020, NASA was planning to build a base and a nuclear power plant on the Moon by 2026 and invited proposals from companies ready to take on the challenge.
The timeline has long lapsed, but NASA isn’t giving up, all the more so that Russia and China have announced on several occasions intentions to put up nuclear reactors on the Moon, too.
Last year, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said that Russia is considering a nuclear power plant installation on the moon starting between 2033 and 2035.
Russia—along with China—is considering the idea of placing a nuclear power plant on the moon over the next decade or so, and the two countries have been working together on a lunar program for nuclear space energy.
“Today we are seriously considering a project—somewhere at the turn of 2033-2035—to deliver and install a power unit on the lunar surface together with our Chinese colleagues,” Yuri Borisov, head of Roscosmos, said in March 2024.
Now NASA wants to beat the Russia-China venture and have a nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who is also the interim NASA administrator, announced this week accelerated plans to have nuclear energy power future bases on the Moon, POLITICO reported first earlier this week.
“We’re in a race to the moon, in a race with China to the moon,” Duffy said during a news conference this week.
“And to have a base on the moon, we need energy.”
It remains to be seen how soon and how feasible such an effort would be, and who will win the space race for setting up 24/7 energy to power future bases on the Moon, and, at some point in the more distant future, on Mars.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
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