Russia and China to Build a Nuclear Plant on the Moon.

[MT]

Weeeeeell....i'm bit sceptical to say the least but is it viable? a 40kW unit is what the aim is.

[SiliconWizard]

They should put a bunch of wind turbines over there instead.

[Andy Chee]

I would've thought solar panels were the obvious choice on the moon, though given the roughly 14 day/14 night cycle, you'd need sufficient battery capacity to sustain operations during the night.

[themadhippy]

even if they sucseed it will never be safe as the earth loop impedance is gonna be massive

[MT]

They should put a bunch of wind turbines over there instead.

Not so fast to recommend "sustainable" solutions from WEF, the thorium flourid molten salt reactor might work.

[SiliconWizard]

I would've thought solar panels were the obvious choice on the moon, though given the roughly 14 day/14 night cycle, you'd need sufficient battery capacity to sustain operations during the night.

Only if they build solar roads on the moon.

[shadow.dark]

It's one thing to have the ability to say it, it's another to have the ability to do it. Chinese officials are good at making PPTs, so let's wait until they actually come up with something, shall we?
"talk is cheap show me the hardware "

[LaserSteve]

 Russia has a long history of liquid metal cooled reactors in space.  A few of them have failed, too.

Steve

[TopQuark]

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/08/russia-heads-back-to-the-moon-with-luna-25/
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/08/russia-seems-to-have-lost-contact-with-its-first-lunar-probe-in-half-a-century/

I mean Russia seems to be struggling with landing anything on the lunar surface for the past half a century, maybe they should stick to the basics before thinking about setting up a nuclear power station on the moon. 

[Circlotron]

World's (or moon's) first tofu dregs nuclear reactor. I can't wait. At least it will be a safe distance away.

[CatalinaWOW]

Doesn't seem to be an enormous scale up of something they have done multiple times already.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-A

The real difference here is Western safety standards vs Soviet/Russian.  If you are willing to have a few accidents here and there it is much easier to design and build.

[JPortici]

I would've thought solar panels were the obvious choice on the moon, though given the roughly 14 day/14 night cycle, you'd need sufficient battery capacity to sustain operations during the night.

Only if they build solar roads on the moon.

what about a solar belt? one half would always had light

[hans]

The real difference here is Western safety standards vs Soviet/Russian.  If you are willing to have a few accidents here and there it is much easier to design and build.

I think its that we learned our lesson early. The scientists that build the atomic bomb for WO2 Japan were crazy cowboys, jumping into a semi-live reactor pool to fix some broken plumbing iirc. And the research lab they worked in had plenty of crazy accidents with "the demon core", with 2 plates inducing runaway fission/critical mass held apart with just a screwdriver. Then the US military also operated some portable/small reactors with sketchy stuff like manual control rods that would get stuck, but if you pull them out too hard the reactor will explode and staple you to the roof with said rods. Oh, and what about you guys stand over there in that field (desert), then we'll have an atomic bomb explode on top of your head just to see what happens (luckily, not all that much).

Its just that the west have come to respect nuclear stuff a lot more over the years.. but in Russia, they treat liabilities as opportunities, they  have plenty of rugs to sweep it under (I heard they put them on walls too, is that the reason?).

[RoGeorge]

i'm bit sceptical to say the least but is it viable?

Nuclear power plant on the Moon?  Don't know if viable, but wasn't the Moon already taken? 

Iron Sky Official Trailer #2
Rotten Tomatoes

[jonovid]

what about the coolant?
but the obvious question is who is saying this?
 is this American propaganda by Firstpost?
Firstpost is an Indian news website owned by Reliance Industries, which also runs CNN-News18 and CNBC TV18.
Reliance Industries Limited is a Fortune 500 company and the largest private sector corporation in India.

[Andy Chee]

but the obvious question is who is saying this?
 is this American propaganda by Firstpost?

Nope.  Actually sounds like Russian propaganda more than anything.

https://www.dw.com/en/russia-china-float-idea-of-building-nuclear-plant-on-moon/a-68448940

[tszaboo]

Maybe they should put a man on the moon first. And return it. Not because that's easy but because it's hard or whatever.

[rdl]

NASA has been working on small nuclear reactors to power things like spacecraft and Moon/Mars bases for a while now. They have had successful test projects, so it's probably doable.

[CatalinaWOW]

It is certainly doable. My previous comment wasn't an endorsement of western safety standards.  In the west we are trending towards finding that a one in a million chance of someone getting a hangnail is unacceptable.  People in the US are currently going crazy over a vacuum thermos that has a lead seal that is not externally accessible, and claiming a billion dollars of emotional damage from being in the airplane that lost a window.

[tszaboo]

It is certainly doable. My previous comment wasn't an endorsement of western safety standards.  In the west we are trending towards finding that a one in a million chance of someone getting a hangnail is unacceptable.  People in the US are currently going crazy over a vacuum thermos that has a lead seal that is not externally accessible, and claiming a billion dollars of emotional damage from being in the airplane that lost a window.

Im fine with fining Boeing a billion dollars for the series of blunders they have been doing in the past few years.

[vad]

Lol. Russia should first take a crash course in landing probes on the Moon without crashing them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/20/science/russia-moon-space-crash.html

[CatalinaWOW]

It is certainly doable. My previous comment wasn't an endorsement of western safety standards.  In the west we are trending towards finding that a one in a million chance of someone getting a hangnail is unacceptable.  People in the US are currently going crazy over a vacuum thermos that has a lead seal that is not externally accessible, and claiming a billion dollars of emotional damage from being in the airplane that lost a window.

Im fine with fining Boeing a billion dollars for the series of blunders they have been doing in the past few years.

Personally, I would rather see the billion dollars spent on fixing the problems rather than enriching lawyers and soothing the bruised psyches of people who suffered no real damage, but whatever floats your boat.

[vad]

It is certainly doable. My previous comment wasn't an endorsement of western safety standards.  In the west we are trending towards finding that a one in a million chance of someone getting a hangnail is unacceptable.  People in the US are currently going crazy over a vacuum thermos that has a lead seal that is not externally accessible, and claiming a billion dollars of emotional damage from being in the airplane that lost a window.

Im fine with fining Boeing a billion dollars for the series of blunders they have been doing in the past few years.

Boeing will pass the costs to airlines, which will then pass them on to consumers. If Boeing can't make airlines foot the bill for the extra costs, taxpayers will have to bail out the "too large to fail" Boeing, leading to higher inflation and everyone paying the price. Are there any winners in this mess? You bet - litigation lawyers.

[AndyBeez]

Once the reactor core is up and running, moon base moscow is going to need a power grid. So that's another 200 tonne of copper cable to soft land somewhere in the sea of catastrophe. Astronauts and other space tourists, pack your USB travel battery.

[Infraviolet]

What a thoroughly deceptive preview image on the video, huge powerplant with cooling towers...* 40KW isn't a powerplant, it's less than a submarine style reactor, a lot less I think. But 40kW is useful for a manned lunar base or that sort of thing.

*also absurd, water on the moon is far too valuable a resource to jettison as a cooling method

It's a good idea, but I doubt Russia and China could trust each other enough to put any real investment in to building one.

It would be nice if the western nations got off their backsides and did some of this, because that sort of nuclear power in space, with some further modifications, is the only way we're ever going to be able to get men to mars, or to get properly big and capable robotic lander missions to the moons of the gas giants.