{"id":368131,"date":"2025-08-23T21:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T21:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/368131\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T21:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T21:07:10","slug":"silent-war-begins-on-the-moon-nasa-faces-china-and-russia-for-this-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/368131\/","title":{"rendered":"Silent war begins on the Moon \u2014 NASA faces China and Russia for this project"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA will race China and Russia for a spot on the moon<\/strong>. In the past, the United States was the first \u2013 and still the only \u2013 country to send astronauts to the moon and have them back. This is one of the most famous moments in history, as Neil Armstrong said the iconic words while walking on the moon. Now, as they are currently trying to return to the natural satellite, they might find more resistance than they previously thought as other nations started to exploring their options to settle where there are no laws: the space.<\/p>\n

Race to the moon: countries have the right to explore the satellite<\/p>\n

Tensions in space exploration are no longer just about planting flags or collecting samples. The next phase is about building a long-term presence, securing valuable locations, and setting the rules for how future missions will operate. With multiple nations aiming for the same territory, every delay could mean losing strategic ground on the Moon.<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, teams are working on a system that could change how missions survive and operate far from Earth. It\u2019s being designed to withstand the Moon\u2019s extreme conditions, support crews for extended periods, and give its operators a decisive advantage over rivals. The groundwork is nearly complete \u2014 and soon, the plans will move from concept to a concrete mission.<\/strong><\/p>\n

NASA authority reveals new plan: nuclear site on the moon<\/p>\n

Transportation Secretary and acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy recently unveiled a plan to put nuclear reactors on the moon\u2014but the announcement had a mixed reception. Critics were quick to weigh in, with NBC calling the plan \u201cimpractical, expensive, and dangerous.\u201d For decades, space missions have relied on nuclear materials for power, mostly in the form of radioisotope thermoelectric generators.<\/p>\n

These use plutonium-238, which gives off heat that can be converted into electricity for small probes\u2014including some Mars rovers. Usually, this involves just 20 or 30 pounds of material. Some Apollo missions even left small amounts of radioactive power<\/strong> sources on the moon. A full-scale nuclear reactor would require hundreds of pounds of low-enriched uranium in small reactors that haven\u2019t been built yet, carried by launch vehicles that don\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

Small reactors were built to be installed in another place in the solar system<\/p>\n

NASA has been exploring the idea of small modular reactors for the moon and Mars for years. According to CNBC, the plan is to fully build and test the facility on Earth before sending it to the moon. Once it reaches orbit, a lander would lower it to the surface, where it would be ready to operate without any further assembly. NASA has made some progress.<\/p>\n

But now Duffy wants to speed things up\u2014moving from a modest 10-kilowatt reactor to a 100-kilowatt version, and getting it to the moon by 2030. That\u2019s five years ahead of the timeline Russia and China have announced for similar missions<\/a>. It\u2019s unlikely that Duffy would pull this off. His 2030 timeline is actually four years later than the 2026 target NASA set just five years ago.<\/p>\n

The risks of this project: Canada suffered the consequences of<\/p>\n

History shows the risks are real. In 1977, the Soviet Union launched a satellite with a nuclear reactor into low-Earth orbit. Weeks later, the satellite failed. A backup plan to eject the reactor into space didn\u2019t work either. The satellite, carrying over 100 pounds of weapons-grade uranium, plunged back through Earth\u2019s atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris along a 400-mile path in Canada. Cleaning it up took eight months. A similar accident on the moon would be even more catastrophic<\/a>. If a meteorite damaged a reactor\u2019s cooling system, heat could build up, causing an explosion. That could contaminate a wide area and leave any NASA lunar base without power.<\/p>\n

Our coverage of events affecting companies is purely informative and descriptive. Under no circumstances does it seek to promote an opinion or create a trend, nor can it be taken as investment advice or a recommendation of any kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA will race China and Russia for a spot on the moon. In the past, the United States…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[70,413,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-368131","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115080124878258909","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}