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Space NASA

US To Expedite Plan For Nuclear Reactor On the Moon (politico.com) 163

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 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 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. The nuclear initiative means that NASA will continue to have a hand in nuclear development even after the Pentagon's recent cancellation of a joint program on nuclear-powered rocket engines. "While the budget did not prioritize nuclear propulsion, that wasn't because nuclear propulsion is seen as a non-worthy technology," the NASA official said.

US To Expedite Plan For Nuclear Reactor On the Moon

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  • Start small (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Perhaps land a man on the moon first.
    • Perhaps land a man on the moon first.

      Cant even build a fucking reactor on planet in under 30 years because of red tape corruption. This entire concept is a con job. We’ll have broadband for all before we have nuclear off-planet. In case we forgot how these scams work.

  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2025 @12:07AM (#65566810)

    Hitler's was Germania. Trump's is a nuclear moon base.

    And of course, on top of that, the orange utan needs all the distractions he can throw at his idiot MAGA base to make them forget the Epstein file.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Bentbob ( 1081243 )

      Maybe TACO Don is planning to open a golf course / bolthole there?

  • by VenatorLucis ( 2422668 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2025 @12:27AM (#65566828)
    And let's begin this Herculean effort by slashing NASA's budget and firing thousands of staff.
    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      The American people would prefer to have their health care back.

      Public announcements don't cost anything.

  • A loss of the lifting vehicle would cost billions of Dollars to clean up. Is private industry going to pay clean that up? Besides, there is plenty of solar power on the moon, where there is little of any atmosphere.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by MacMann ( 7518492 )

      How is this a "dangerous stunt" exactly?

      You should know that uranium comes from the ground. Maybe people aren't aware of this but there's uranium salts dissolved in the sea. If there's a failure on launch and this reactor lands in the ocean then we would be returning the uranium to where it came from in the first place. I don't know what form the uranium would be in inside the reactor but I'm taking a guess that it would be uranium ceramics, like the stuff coffee mugs are made of. Drop that in the ocean

      • Uranium is so low in radiation that it's used as radiation shielding

        No need to be deceptive. Radiation shielding is made from depleted uranium [wikipedia.org], which has had the fissile U-235 removed, so it's irrelevant to this topic. A reactor would use some form of enriched uranium or plutonium or thorium with higher than natural levels of fissile material.

      • Uranium is so low in radiation that it's used as radiation shielding, to protect people from radiation emitted from something else.

        lol. Did you honestly not know that they don't use fissile Uranium for that purpose?
        Since they don't fill fuel rods with U-238, I don't think that's very relevant here, now is it?

      • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "...then we would be returning the uranium to where it came from in the first place."
        Which is why 3 mile island, Chernobyl and Fukushima never threatened the environment. They were all deep state propaganda.

        "don't know what form the uranium would be in inside the reactor but I'm taking a guess..."
        Great, we love your guesses. You're so informed on the issues.

        "There's been nuclear powered submarines lost at sea before, can anyone detect radioactive material leaks from them?"
        A loss at sea does not mean there

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      A loss of the lifting vehicle would cost billions of Dollars to clean up. Is private industry going to pay clean that up? Besides, there is plenty of solar power on the moon, where there is little of any atmosphere.

      I don't think you realize how little radioactive material we're talking about here. 1 kilogram of U-235 would power a 100 kW reactor for more than two decades, if my math is right. That's about the size of a golf ball. You're telling me you don't think they can put enough lead around a golf-ball-sized chunk of uranium to ensure that it doesn't end up exposing anyone if the ship explodes during launch?

      • A loss of the lifting vehicle would cost billions of Dollars to clean up. Is private industry going to pay clean that up? Besides, there is plenty of solar power on the moon, where there is little of any atmosphere.

        I don't think you realize how little radioactive material we're talking about here. 1 kilogram of U-235 would power a 100 kW reactor for more than two decades, if my math is right. That's about the size of a golf ball. You're telling me you don't think they can put enough lead around a golf-ball-sized chunk of uranium to ensure that it doesn't end up exposing anyone if the ship explodes during launch?

        * Glances over at black box recovery statistics *

        Considering we can’t even make those fucking things good enough to survive every time, no. No, I do not. Why do you.

      • I'd love to read about this high-melting point lead you have discovered.
        You're right, that as long as the rocket exploded before the craft was going too fast you're probably just gonna launch a ball of lead into the ocean.
        It turns out, however, that the safe time for it to explode is quite a small fraction of its total flight time, and if it explodes at say, mach 3, that lead will melt off.
        If it explodes at say, mach 10, that lead will boil.
        • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          I'd love to read about this high-melting point lead you have discovered. You're right, that as long as the rocket exploded before the craft was going too fast you're probably just gonna launch a ball of lead into the ocean. It turns out, however, that the safe time for it to explode is quite a small fraction of its total flight time, and if it explodes at say, mach 3, that lead will melt off. If it explodes at say, mach 10, that lead will boil.

          Doesn't matter. The absolute worst case heat situation should be reentry. Apollo's ablative heat shield is only three inches thick. Putting a three-inch ball of phenolic epoxy resin, wrapped around a half an inch of lead, wrapped around something the size of a golf ball is well within the realm of what can be done.

          • Apollo's heat shield worked because of the aerodynamic properties of the CM.
            You cannot put nuclear fuel in a reentry capable aerodynamic body.

            Everything you have just described has effectively rendered the fuel as unusable. We're not talking about an RTG. This stuff needs to function as reactor fuel.

            Your armchair physics expert take on this is absurd.
            Launching fissile material into space is dangerous. Period.

            That doesn't mean it doesn't need to be done, but you acting like it's no risk, waving your
  • A reactor on the moon? What a fresh, new idea! After all, it is not like someone had thought of that before, let's say around 85 years ago...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowups_Happen [wikipedia.org]

  • by cowdung ( 702933 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2025 @02:01AM (#65566934)

    The Sun sends out charged particles that hit the surface of the moon constantly. However, in many of the craters, the particles don't reach the crater flood because they are masked by the crater walls.

    This causes a strong electrical potential difference. Ie. moon craters are essentially batteries. You should be able to connect a wire between the crater floor and the crater top that would cause electricity to flow and you'd get an endless source of energy.

    Why bother with reactors when you can simply take a few wires?

    • Uh, that sounds fishy .. I feel like we'd see some arcing on the moon if that were the case. I get that we wanna play Nikola Tesla on the moon, but solar may be easier since you have to wire stuff up anyway. Is it any better than solar + batteries?

      • It's true, but it's only a couple hundred volts (not enough to arc through vacuum), and a tiny amount of power. It is not a viable power source. It's just a risk for electronic equipment you take into craters.
    • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      Feed the cheese to a million mice on a million treadmills?
  • However, it is powerful enough to send a beam of energy to say, a humanoid shaped robot with an antenna shaped as a X on the back, to power a gun that has enough firepower to destroy an O'Neill space colony?
    Ideally it should be able to power several of those at time, just in case we have a situation where several of these colonies are being dropped on earth at once.

  • by q_e_t ( 5104099 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2025 @04:07AM (#65567056)
    Gerry Anderson will be spinning in his grave, followed by his coffin being deposited onto a conveyor belt to be take to another part of the graveyard and be tipped up by a hydraulic ram before being deposited into a different grave.
    • Re:Space 1999 (Score:5, Informative)

      by rklrkl ( 554527 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2025 @04:19AM (#65567074) Homepage

      I'm surprised Space:1999 wasn't the very first comment about this! For those not in the know, it was a 1970's UK sci-fi TV show (great first season, not so hot second season) where a nuclear pile on Moonbase Alpha explodes on the moon and hurtles it away from the earth (spoiler: no, they never return to earth). Have we not learned our lesson from Professor Gerry Anderson after all these years? :-)

      • by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
        In the case of Space 1999, it was nuclear waste from Earth, but presumably the waste from a reactor will be stored on the Moon rather than dropped into the gravity well to Earth to land where it will. As long as they have Eagles I don't care, though.
  • Geek enthusiasm struggles against Trump hate, like a 60's sci fi robot caught in a contradiction ...

  • This is just stupid. This is what you get when you put in as president a person ignorant of science and technology, who is also incapable of rational thought.

  • ... or they could put up solar panels instead.
  • by whitroth ( 9367 ) <whitroth.5-cent@us> on Tuesday August 05, 2025 @12:48PM (#65567862) Homepage

    No, what's significantly inhimbiting the US is 47.

    All scum. I want back to "FOR ALL MANKIND."

  • by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Tuesday August 05, 2025 @04:02PM (#65568392) Homepage

    It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!).

    Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

    Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

    Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.

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