Why on Earth would NASA construct a nuclear reactor on the Moon?

Source link : https://tech365.info/why-on-earth-would-nasa-construct-a-nuclear-reactor-on-the-moon/

“Duffy to announce nuclear reactor on the moon” isn’t a headline I imagined studying earlier than final week. Positive, as a sci-fi loving nerd, I may see a future the place nuclear energy performed a job in everlasting Moon settlements. However the thought of NASA constructing a 100-kilowatt microreactor there within the subsequent 5 years appeared ridiculous. Not so, in accordance with scientists.

“I have no idea why this is getting so much play,” Professor Bhavya Lal tells me over the telephone, with a touch of exasperation in her voice. Lal’s response is smart when you perceive the arc of her profession; she has spent a lot of her skilled life occupied with how the US ought to use nuclear energy to discover area. At NASA, she served because the performing chief technologist, and was awarded the company’s Distinguished Service Medal. Amongst her different {qualifications}, she additionally testified earlier than Congress as regards to nuclear propulsion, and even helped rewrite the foundations governing launches involving radioactive supplies.

Most not too long ago, she wrote a paper titled Weighing the Future: Strategic Choices for US Area Nuclear Management the place she and her co-author, Dr. Roger Myers, study the previous failures of US coverage because it pertains to nuclear energy in area and argue the nation ought to check a small nuclear system on the Moon by 2030. The way in which Casey Dreier, chief of area coverage at The Planetary Society —…

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Author : tech365

Publish date : 2025-08-15 16:47:00

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