The United States is Planning to Build a Nuclear Reactor on The Moon
Politico – Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy will announce expedited plans this week to build a nuclear reactor on the moon, the first major action by the former Fox News host as the interim NASA administrator.
NASA has discussed building a reactor on the lunar surface, but this would set a more definitive timeline — according to documents obtained by POLITICO — and come just as the agency faces a massive budget cut. The move also underscores how Duffy, who faced pushback from lawmakers about handling two jobs, wants to play a role in NASA policymaking.
“It is about winning the second space race,” said a NASA senior official, granted anonymity to discuss the documents ahead of their wider release.
Hell yeah. The energy we'll get from the nuclear moon is whatever. This is primarily about dropping our nuts down China, Russia, and all the other competitive space racer's throats. Building a nuclear reactor on the moon, despite it not even being on the same planet as America, is as American as it gets.
The reactor directive orders the agency to solicit industry proposals for a 100 kilowatt nuclear reactor to launch by 2030, a key consideration for astronauts’ return to the lunar surface. NASA previously funded research into a 40 kilowatt reactor for use on the moon, with plans to have a reactor ready for launch by the early 2030s.
The first country to have a reactor could “declare a keep-out zone which would significantly inhibit the United States,” the directive states, a sign of the agency’s concern about a joint project China and Russia have launched.
The directive also orders NASA to designate a leader for the effort and to get industry input within 60 days. The agency is seeking companies able to launch a reactor by 2030 since that’s around the time China intends to land its first astronaut on the moon.
DW – China and Russia plan to build a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2035 to power a permanent lunar base. The International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) will rely on the power plant for its scientific research. The IRLS involves over a dozen international partners and is seen as a rival program to NASA's Artemis Program
It used to be all a country had to do to claim dibs on the moon was plant a flag. Now we have to build a whole ass nuclear reactor. Moon Law has come a long way.
Luckily we have former Fox News host Sean Duffy on the case. This is a man who won the Real World: Road Rules Challenge
A man who was at one time a competition lumberjack.
And now he's building a nuclear reactor on the moon. That's a heck of a resume.
I can't help but wonder what the potential consequences (for Earth) could be if we accidentally Chernobyled the moon. I'm sure it's fine, right? It's not like Chernobyl affected the United States. The moon is a couple hundred thousand miles farther away than Russia. And if anything that bad happens to the moon we can just blow it up. What do we need the moon for anyways? Tides? The Earth's tilt? Yeah we might not have seasons anymore, but if we time it right, maybe we can make it so America is permanently stuck in May. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
It's about time we got another space race fired up. It's been far too long since anything exciting has happened moon-wise. Just sending a regular old astronaut up there is boring. Anybody can do that. Katy Perry was walking on the moon just a few weeks ago. But a nuclear reactor space race… that gets the juices flowing.