NASA Aims for U.S. to Be First to Put Nuclear Reactor on the Moon: ‘To Have a Base on the Moon, We Need Energy’

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, serving as interim NASA administrator, said the United States must “get our act together” in the global competition to reach the moon and Mars.

Speaking at a press conference on Aug. 5, the 53-year-old outlined NASA’s goal to make the U.S. the first nation to place a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030.

“We’re in a race to the moon, in a race with China to the moon, and to have a base on the moon, we need energy,” Duffy told reporters. The politician — and former The Real World: Boston reality TV cast member — stressed that this technology is “critically important” for future space exploration.

“This fission technology is critically important, and so we’ve spent hundreds of million dollars studying, ‘Can we do it?’ We are now going to move beyond studying, and we’ve given direction to go,” Duffy continued. “Let’s start to deploy our technology to make this a reality.”

He emphasized that sustaining life on the moon — and eventually reaching Mars — depends on such advancements.

NASA’s fission surface power project, building on the agency’s earlier Kilopower initiative, aims to create compact, lightweight fission systems capable of operating on both the moon and Mars.

Previously, NASA discussed a system that could deliver at least 40 kilowatts of power — enough to run 30 households for a decade. However, POLITICO recently reported the agency’s new target is a 100-kilowatt reactor.

At the Department of Transportation press conference, Duffy underscored the urgency of moving forward.

“We’re behind, right? … We have to marshal all of our resources, all of our focus on going to the moon, which is what we’re going to do,” he said. “This is about space exploration. This is about this next phase.”