Great plan. It could power a base on the moon.
NASA Reveals Bold Plan to Put a Nuclear Reactor on The Moon Within 10 Years
The Moon awaits. After long decades in which no human being set foot on the lunar surface, we are heading back. And quite soon.
As part of the NASA-led Artemis program, astronauts are returning to the lunar environment as soon as 2024, with a view to ultimately establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon – a place we haven't seen in person since 1972.
To live and work on the Moon, though, astronauts will need power and plenty of it, and there's no power grid on the Moon.
While any number of creative solutions might be able to help fix that problem, for years NASA has viewed nuclear fission as the most practical power option for future astronaut colonies, and now the space agency is taking the next step in making a nuclear reactor on the Moon a reality.
"Plentiful energy will be key to future space exploration," says Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD).