Russia is reportedly planning to establish a nuclear power plant on the moon within the next decade.
This ambitious project aims to supply energy for its lunar space programme and a joint research station with China, as global powers intensify their efforts in lunar exploration.
Historically, Russia has held a prominent position in space, notably with Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering journey in 1961.
However, its dominance has waned in recent decades, with the nation now trailing behind the United States and, increasingly, China.
The country’s lunar aspirations faced a significant setback in August 2023 when its uncrewed Luna-25 mission crashed during a landing attempt.
Furthermore, the landscape of space launches, once a Russian speciality, has been revolutionised by figures such as Elon Musk, adding to the competitive pressure.
It’s nice to hear crazy statements from a dictator other than trump
they played a little too much RA2, yuris revenge.
In the next few years?! Lol. That’s Elon Musk batshit crazy.
It’ll be the US and China going to the moon, most likely, in the next decade or so.
Russia doesn’t even have any functioning launch pads for manned flights after the Baikonur Cosmodrome was damaged in November
Crewed or non-crewed even! They can’t even launch crewless Progress resupply vehicles to the ISS right now.
They are so cash strapped, instead of building a new space station, they are reusing the 30 year old capsules from the current ISS. Against everyone’s recommendations, even their own scientists.
with China
This answers a few questions
How the fuck they gonna get to the moon if they can’t get to Kiev?
Instead they’re gonna take over the new Kiev they build on the moon.
The moon currently doesn’t have anti-rocket weapons systems. Kyiv does.
I’d crowd fund putting anti-rocket weapon systems on the moon. I bet we can beat Russia there.
Seems a bit ambitious for a country that has yet to even land successfully on the moon.
I wouldn’t rely on Russia to get a shoebox diorama of a nuclear reactor to the moon “within the next decade.”
I would assume that China is doing the larger part of this.
The article text just says that they’re building a nuclear power plant, not transporting it or building other components of the lunar base.
Yea me too. Call the AP for a presser.
Might keep Ukraine from blowing that shit up .
Kiev and Warsaw announce joint space program next week./s
Lunar chernobyl would be funny enough I’m here for it
Umm… Cooling?
There are spacecrafts that currently require cooling for electronics or for nuclear reactors or wtv. You can’t use convection (a fluid, such as the atmosphere, contacting what you want to cool), but you can cool using radiation. Just emit extra energy as radiation and you can keep whatever cool
Not much of a problem if you go for the south side. Maintenance, on the other hand…
Cooling requires heat transfer, and whatever thin atmosphere the moon has won’t be able to do that.
But not all heat transfer requires an atmosphere
Heat doesn’t transfer through empty space; it transfers through “stuff”. There needs to be cooler “stuff” for heat to transfer to.
South side, or dark side? Kenny or jarjar?
Dark side, south side. The part that rarely gets any sun.
The “dark side” of the moon is just the one that constantly faces away from the Earth. It gets just as much sunlight as the rest of the surface.
There are certain craters or other formations near the south pole of the moon that are arranged in such a way that some parts of the surface are in permanent shadow. These are interesting because we expect to find very low temperatures in these permanent shadows, and if they’ve been around for several million years, any number of volatile compounds.
Anyhow, I think this is the “dark side” the person referred to.
It seems like somewhat of a waste to me to use these as heatsinks, when you could just use a lot of radiators. But what do I know?
You realize that the moon is totally locked to Earth right, not the Sun. The back of the moon faces the Sun half the time.
Yes, so wouldn’t my question about cooling be valid, unless they plan on running the reactor only half of the time?
Do you want morloks? Because that’s how you get morloks.
Stupidest plan ever. How exactly do they plan to send the power to orbiting space systems? And who is going to operate and maintain the systems?
Lasers would be a viable option in space for power delivery.
