Acting NASA chief Sean Duffy to announce plans for building nuclear reactor on the moon

NY Post ^ | 08/04/2025 | Victor Nava

[BenLurkin]

The Trump administration aims to accelerate the construction of a nuclear reactor on the moon, Transportation Secretary and acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy wrote in a memo distributed internally on Monday.

The space agency has previously explored the possibility of installing an electricity-generating nuclear reactor on the lunar surface capable of powering a sustained human presence, but Duffy intends to fast-track the project and more than double the reactor’s power output, according to documents obtained by The Post.

“To properly advance this critical technology to be able to support a future lunar economy, high power energy generation on Mars, and to strengthen our national security in space, it is imperative the agency move quickly,” Duffy wrote in the memo.

“It is about winning the second space race,” a NASA senior official told Politico, which first reported on Duffy’s plans.

Duffy’s directive will instruct NASA to seek out proposals for a 100-kilowatt nuclear reactor that would be ready for launch by 2030.

[GingisK]

All sides of the moon are exposed to the sun as the moon circuits the Earth. Only one side faces the Earth. Very different motions. Take two balls and experiment with them. Let light shine on the system and then orbit one about the other, keeping one face pointed at the stationary one in the center. You will definitely see illumination over the course of the orbit.

[GingisK]

Take that up with Led Zeppelin.

[TexasGator]

We did that in 6th grade. The dark side is always the side opposite the sun.

[GingisK]

Correct. I think you are just jerking me around. I’m going to tell mama.

[TexasGator]

:)

[linMcHlp]

Zeppelin - always reminds me of my uncle, a US Army Lt. during WW-I (by chance, no combat, but an observer of some things). Somewhere, he took a picture of one of the German Zeppelins, after the war. (And somewhere, I might still have that picture?)

Meanwhile, I have been reading about the Zeppelins:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Zeppelins

And one of the British aircraft that would shoot down Zeppelins, early in WW-I:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Aircraft_Factory_BE.2

Both types of air -craft, being so vulnerable, yet men dared to fly.

[Revel]

There are different types of radiation. To my knowledge you cannot find a single source of concentrated material such as Plutonium in nature. Only when man has created it.

[PIF]

“There are different types of radiation. “

Such a revelation!! Pure Genius!!!

“To my knowledge you cannot find a single source of concentrated material such as Plutonium in nature. Only when man has created it.”

So there is no plutonium in any of the trillions and trillions of galaxies with billion and billions of stars. Wow!!! You are very knowledgeable!!! Having explored in depth the entire Universe.