this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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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.
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.