A Nuclear Reactor on the Moon?

NBC's Rory O'Neill reports within the next 10 years, the U.S. will put a nuclear reactor on the moon as part of a lunar base

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's check in now on the Legacy Retirement Group dot
Com phone line with NBC News Radios. Rory O'Neill, Rory,
good morning. I see we are putting a nuclear reactor
on the Moon. How's this going to work?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's what the Secretary Duffy, who is a Transportation secretary
currently interim head of NASA said. The plan is to
put that reactor up there within a decade as part
of a lunar base. This is also being announced a
couple months after Russia and China said they were going
in on a similar project together. But look, show me

(00:33):
the money. You know, there are already plans to cut
the NASA budget by about twenty six percent. Obviously, this
would be a pretty expensive endeavor, and there are still
a lot of environmental concerns for the Moon, but also
for us here. You know, when those rockets launched, they
don't always make it off the pad successfully without something
going boom, and there are concerns that something could explode

(00:55):
along Florida, maybe Texas could be a problem.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
So we need we need power. If we're going to
put the lunar base up there, it needs energy, and
they're going nuclear on it instead of maybe you know
solar or some other form of energy source.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Right, solar is you'd have to bring about an awful
lot of panels, and of course that weight. The story
is all about weight and getting it off here to
get to the moon. So you know, one small nuclear
reactor would be much more effective. You know, the kind
of reactory we have on a submarine is probably the
ideal comparison.