Are the Eastern, Western, and Northern great powers all going to build nuclear power plants on the Moon?

Race to seed the Moon with reactors

A new front has opened in the great-power space race: nuclear power on the lunar surface. Russia has unveiled a plan to build a moon-based nuclear power plant within five to seven years, and it has been reported that Moscow and Beijing had already signed an agreement last year to co-develop lunar nuclear systems — an accord that now looks likely to fragment into parallel national efforts, much like the CR929 airliner saga. Meanwhile, NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy have announced their own lunar nuclear plans; it has been reported that NASA may obtain some 400 kg of highly enriched fuel from DOE for deep-space and surface power tests. Who will actually get there first? The answer will depend as much on politics as on engineering.

Technical hurdles and pragmatic realities

The engineering case for reactors on the Moon is simple: a lunar day lasts about 29.5 Earth days, meaning roughly two weeks of sunlight followed by two weeks of darkness — solar power alone struggles. It has been reported that the Moon may contain vast reservoirs of nuclear feedstocks, on the order of 840 million tonnes of thorium and 360 million tonnes of uranium, which would dwarf terrestrial reserves if verified. But vast raw material does not solve immediate problems. Reactors need robust heat rejection systems; terrestrial plants rely on plentiful water and atmosphere for cooling, neither of which exists on the lunar surface. Existing small modular reactors — China’s Linglong‑1 (玲龙一号) and Russia’s RITM‑200N — are being touted as candidates for lunar adaptation, but it has been reported that none have been fully tested in vacuum or microgravity.

Geopolitics will shape outcomes

This is as much a geopolitical contest as an engineering one. Sanctions, export controls and longstanding restrictions on bilateral cooperation — for example, U.S. legal and policy barriers to close cooperation with China — will constrain joint projects and technology transfers. That helps explain why initial talk of cooperation has given way to parallel national programs: each power fears dependence on rivals for strategic infrastructure in cis-lunar space. For now, announcements and roadmaps abound, but operational lunar reactors remain speculative. Can reactor designs be adapted to survive lunar thermal cycles and radiation? Can nations reconcile strategic rivalry with the shared technical challenge of powering permanent bases? Those are the hard questions ahead.