Transportation Secretary and Acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy confirmed in a Tuesday press conference that NASA has expedited plans for deploying a nuclear reactor on the moon.
The confirmation comes after several major news outlets reported on Monday of the space agency’s plans.
“This is not a new concept,” Duffy said during the Tuesday Department of Transportation press conference. “This was discussed under Trump 1 [the first administration] and Biden, but we are in a race with China to the moon. To have a base on the moon we’ll need energy.”
Duffy was conducting a press conference on Department of Transportation drone policy, when a reporter asked a question on the moon reactor.
Duffy said NASA has studied locations on the moon and have spent “hundreds of millions of dollars”, he said, studying the feasibility of the project but have turned its attention to deploying the technology to “make it a reality,” he added.
The reactor directive would order NASA to seek industry proposals for a 100 kilowatt nuclear reactor to launch by 2030, according to a Monday report by Politico. NASA has previously sought plans to deploy a nuclear reactor on the moon before, but the upcoming announcement is expected to give a more definitive timeline.
That timeline had not been announced as of Thursday morning.
The potential nuclear deployment builds on the United States’s ambition to set up a permanent base on the moon.
