NASA Aims for U.S. to Be First to Put Nuclear Reactor on the Moon: ‘To Have a Base on the Moon, We Need Energy’

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• Interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy shared plans to make the U.S. the first nation to put a nuclear reactor on the moon

• “We’re behind, right? … We have to marshal all of our resources, all of our focus on going to the moon, which is what we’re going to do,” he said during a Department of Transportation press conference on Aug. 5

• Duffy is aiming for NASA to accomplish this by 2030

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the interim NASA administrator, proclaimed that the U.S. needs to “get our act together” when it comes to the ongoing race to the moon and Mars against other nations.

To do this, Duffy, 53, shared during a press conference NASA’s plan to make the U.S. the first to put a nuclear reactor on the moon with an aim of by 2030.

“We’re in a race to the moon, in a race with China to the moon, and to have a base on the moon, we need energy,” the politician and former The Real World: Boston reality TV personality told reporters on Aug. 5.

“This fission technology is critically important, and so we’ve spent hundreds of million dollars studying, ‘Can we do it?’ We are now going to move beyond studying, and we’ve given direction to go,” Duffy continued. “Let’s start to deploy our technology to move to actually make this a reality.”

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“If we’re going to be able to sustain life on the moon, to then go to Mars, this technology is critically important,” he added.

NASA’s ongoing fission surface power project, which expands on the space agency’s Kilopower project, is striving to create “relatively small and lightweight” fission systems that would operate on the moon and Mars.

According to NASA, a previously discussed fission system would provide at least 40 kilowatts of power, which would “continuously run 30 households for 10 years.” However, POLITICO reported just before Duffy’s announcement, that NASA is now aiming to build a 100-kilowatt reactor.

At the Department of Transportation press conference this week, Duffy noted the need for speed in getting a nuclear reactor on the moon.

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“We’re behind, right? … We have to marshal all of our resources, all of our focus on going to the moon, which is what we’re going to do,” he said, adding, “This is about space exploration. This is about this next phase.”

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