Well that's dumb. Solar power during the very long day could power operations and charge batteries for ops during the long night. Trump's admin is so anti-renewables that they'd rather build a nuke plant than take advantage of solar. I'm only surprised they aren't trying to figure out how to build a coal plant up there.
this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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A small reactor like what we use in submarines or our aircraft carriers would probably be the best tool for the job on the moon. They are small and require minimal maintenance (within their fairly long lifespan) and they produce enormous amounts of power.
How much weight in solar panels would it take to produce what a reactor could?
Would a single panel on the moon last more than 20 years?
How do we decommission panels on the moon?
(forgot about batteries)... all of these things IDEALLY will come back down to Earth some day so the fewer things we put on the moon in the first place the better
And we can just shoot the spent fuel into the sun!
It's more efficient to launch it out of the solar system. Less Ξv required.
Imagine being the first alien civilization to find remnants of ancient human culture in space, and it's a cancerous death rock screaming radiation... Haha
Having enough batteries to survive two weeks of darkness would weigh a lot more than a nuclear reactor.
Solar might only be viable at some polar regions where you can get full sunlight with no day/night cycle. 2 weeks of night time to survive on batteries would be rough.
My first thought was, that is pretty awesome.
After thinking about it and reading your comment my thoughts are, don't nuclear reactors on earth take years to build? This process seems extremely difficult. Solar power makes so much sense.
NASA has already built prototype reactors for this purpose. They're small, highly efficient, and incredibly safe. The main thing is that the scale of power generation is vastly different here. A terrestrial nuclear reactor is generating hundreds of megawatts of electricity from (up to) gigawatts of thermal energy. We don't need that much power for a small moon base. 10-100 kilowatts would be just fine, especially if it's serving to supplement solar panels or batteries.
Nuclear power does have a really valid use-case in space. Solar panels should always be used first and foremost, but there are just times where they're not going to be enough.
Let's be real, burning coal on the moon would actually be less harmful to the environment... as long as you ignore the carbon emissions needed to transport the coal to the moon in the first place.
And the oxygen to burn the coal, unless youβre using regolith
Sounds like a US rube goldberg machine waiting to happen. Ever increasing infrastructure on the moon to get a coal fired plant up and running, which in turn runs the infrastructure (at a loss) and nothing else.
Lol. But lunar warming!
Oh boy I can't wait for the SpaceX rocket carrying the uranium to explode on the launchpad.
Don't worry, the radiation will only be 3.6. No great, not terrible.
Please donβt fuck up the moon. Itβs big and boring but it does a lot by just being there and doing βnothingβ.
Literally how could we? It's a big rock, it has no ecosystem whatsoever, and any effort to live there someday would require environmentally sealed and radiation resistant structures. Degrading what it does to earth would require significantly altering it's mass or orbit, which would require an amount of energy that isn't in the cards for a long time to come even optimistically.
someone could muck up the viewable side surface but it'd take forever to do that
it would be cool seeing a dot on it and knowing it's a human structure that's definitely doing energy in space wrong but still a cool endeavor
If a moon with city lights doesn't awaken the sci-fi nerd in everyone then I don't know what to say.
Let's just agree to keep the dark side dark for telescopes.
Trying to set the moon up as a military base or start an arms race to control the most of it, is kind of ruining it, but hey move fast and break things, is what led us to fuck things up here. Let's go and try it on the nearest celestial object too. That's the most logical thing to do.
And just because the technology and resource to manage it better isn't here yet, why not start early? That works out just as planned every time on earth. It would be a piece of cake on the moon.
President Donald Trump has prioritized U.S. dominance in what one senior NASA official described to Politico as "the second space race."
You guys never learn and it shows.
I expect the tides to cease and a lot of meteor showers in the future.
Lol, the US is currently contracting SpaceX, best known for making really cool, futuristic and expensive bombs.
By fast-track do they mean 500 years instead of 1000?
I feel that's not fair to some of the engineers at SpaceX. A prior head of NASA is quoted multiple times saying reusable first stages would be impossible, only 5-10 years before SpaceX landed 2 falcon heavy first stages simultaneously. Space is hard. A lot of test and production space vehicles do explode. Several of the challenger missions for example. Clearly Elon is a rube, but that doesn't imply everyone under him is... So maybe just try to make your point without disrespecting and disregarding the work of some of the brightest engineers on the planet?
It is hard, yet the space shuttle program did just fine and didn't burn 3 billion dollars of tax payer money for spacex to say "well, it got off the launch pad before exploding, success!"
No hate to the engineers there, i'm sure any good they do is overshadowed by the nazi drug addict that employees them.
The space shuttle is literally the deadliest space vehicle to ever exist. And (adjusted for inflation) cost 1.5 billion dollar per launch ... what are you even talking about?
135 missions, only 3 failures with a total of 14 astronauts dead. Spacex had 9 launches and 5 failed.
135 missions, only 3 failures with a total of 14 astronauts dead.
Yeah ... that is bad. In fact, the worst track record for any manned space vehicle.
Also the comparison to Starship is stupid as it's still in development. And Falcon 9 already beats the shuttle in everything but raw payload capacity. Hell, so did the Soyuz.
Falcon 9 is only partially reusable, it is not a reusable vehicle, only the booster. Can't really compare it to the space shuttle.
Neither was the space shuttle, so they are totally comparable
And even the reusable parts if the shuttle needed extensive and lengthy maintenance to fly again, something the falcon 9 has vastly improved upon.
Oh come on, stop bashing SpaceX. They've been quite successful at roasting a banana over the Indian ocean, how many companies can make that claim?
Isn't it illegal to transport fissile material into space?
Illegal may be the incorrect way to say it
There are international treaties agreeing that countries will not do that
Voyager 1 used Nuclear power I believe
*used. it is still going. :)
\m/ \m/
You are correct Voyager is metal
I was a small child when it launched. Also, say the invention of heavy metal. Looks like both will outlast me.
You can't kill the metal! - Tenacious D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOUcIsvymOY&pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN5tD
Many space probes and landers/rovers used RTGs. The treaty doesnt forbid nuclear fuel in space, only weapons of mass destruction.
Pretty much every inter planetary satellite has a reactor for power. Not all reactive material is considered fissile.
This is changing as solar panels get lighter and more efficient. Galileo studied Jupiter in the 90s and was powered by an RTG, but Juno and Europa Clipper are both using solar panels to study the same body.
DJT: I am the law.
But why?
Really expensive to get fuel there on a regular schedule
Ok but do we go to the moon on a regular schedule or have any reason to?
Science, research, observations, intelligence, etc.
No honey the US is falling apart but it is nice to have dreams.
Okaaaaayyy...
Don't even worry about it
Blow the Moon.