Russia plans to build a nuclear power plant on the moon in the next few years
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.
https://www.independent.co.uk/space/russia-china-space-race-moon-nuclear-power-b2890010.htmlOpen linkView original on sh.itjust.works
83 replies
How the fuck they gonna get to the moon if they can't get to Kiev?
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.
However Kyiv does have a breathable atmosphere so it probably equals out.
I'd love to know what their plan for cooling the reactor is. I suspect their pie in the sky pseudoplan has not bothered to take into account little things like thermodynamics
Instead they're gonna take over the new Kiev they build on the moon.
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 have other launch platforms that can be used to reach the moon, but Baikonur is specifically suitable for reaching the very specific orbit of the ISS without a plane change manuver.
What they most specifically lack is access to modern hardened semiconductors. They are throwing all those at Ukraine.
One other, Vostochniy, which is also not exactly doing great
They have one other launch site and it's not fully functional.
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.
India and Japan also have aspirations.
Seems a bit ambitious for a country that has yet to even land successfully on the moon.
It's nice to hear crazy statements from a dictator other than trump
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.
I totally believe you, but do you have some sources for me?
This wasn't the original article I read but it's all over the place now. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-russia-space-station-recycling-iss.html
Thanks!
This really sounds like just decoupling & rearranging the modules & renaming the result.
And it's being sold as Russia being once again on the forefront of space technology or so.
On a side note, I wonder if there's any sort of objective statement to be obtained anymore from any expert working for any Russian institution.
This answers a few questions
It's like this ancient joke about the kid that says he and his dad know the answer to every question.
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.
I want a new gameshow where two contestants say the most unbelievable shit to each other until the other has no retort. First episode is Trump and Putin.
So we're getting moon Nazis before GTA6
No, we're getting exploded nuclear material in the atmosphere before GTA 6.
IronSky future
Reminds me of Wolfenstein The New Order. Great game!
Yea me too. Call the AP for a presser.
So am I.
You have an equally likely chance of making this happen.
they played a little too much RA2, yuris revenge.
Might keep Ukraine from blowing that shit up .
Kiev and Warsaw announce joint space program next week./s
You joke but I honestly think they could make it happen sooner.
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
We're talking about the output of the nuclear reactor. Not heat generated by a few computer. There are no radiator design that can deal with that kind of heat.
Sci-fi shows either just hand wave it away by just putting massive radiators on things and hope you don't think about the scale or they just straight up ignore it.
If there's a limit to how much heat a surface can radiate, cooling a more intense heat source just requires more surface area to radiate heat from.
In those cases you would use smaller reactorssuch as these. Alternatively you may be able to use the moon as a heat sink, kinda like reverse geothermal energy
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.
Regolith heat sink?
Ok, what about the sun? Are you a "firmament enjoyer"?
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?
They'll have to fight the Nazis that reside in the dark side
fight? in putins case i think you mean join
Iron Sky Official Trailer
So how long until they ride dinosaurs?
3 days meant 3 years.
So, a few years means a few centuries.
What do you mean? It's been more than three years and they are less than 25% done
Lunar chernobyl would be funny enough I'm here for it
Lets see how long this special operation lasts.
lol….. this isn’t happening.
The residents of the hollow Moon might object.
Sure, why not?
So I'm curious, normally a nuclear power plant uses mass amounts of water to heat and cool in a steam based engine/turbine essentially, thus creating the power. Would this not take at least 300 successful moon landings just to get the water there, let alone the storage for the water and any other materials needed. So I imagine minimal 500 moon landings to get a small makeshift power station? Or am I missing something drastic here..
There is ice on the moon, so it's possible they're planning on harvesting that.
Also liquid hydrogen and oxygen can be shipped up much easier than water directly.
It's still the same amount of mass. It doesn't get lighter because you ship it as it's component parts.
Weight, sure. But with water the main issue is volume - water simply doesn't compress that well. The volume of water you can carry will give you much less weight than the same volume of compressed oxygen and hydrogen gases.
I suppose that makes sense, just need some kind of drill or something to drill it out and collect it I guess. The surface I didn't think had much, that is was mostly subterranean ice, but that does seem more efficient than flying it all there.
"Russia will take over Europe and America and we'll have a base on the moon in just a short few years!"
I can see Ruzzkis are getting angry since the propaganda is slowly regressing back to how it was in WWII.
You'll have to finish your little "special military operation" before you're allowed to fail at another project. Ruahahahahah
Honestly, just collapse already.
Ukraine should attack Moscow with Blue and Yellow paint before their next round of negotiations so the people of Moscow can really see the weakness of the Kremlin Gremlin, and then if that round of negotiations fails to bring a peace agreement level the Kremlin. Most of the world would be fine with it at this point, I'd imagine.
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.
Sort of? It seems to me that Darpa has only been able to transfer about 800 watts over a 5 mile distance. A nuclear power plant produces something, like, 500 megawatts? This wouldn't be enough to justify the power production at that scale, not to mention I'm skeptical of any wireless solution that wouldn't drop some energy efficiency and it would obviously require constant visibility which would also need manned guidance.
If this weren't Elon musk, I would say producing liquid hydrogen wouldn't be a terrible way to at least save unused power, but then you have a whole different host of problems.
LOL. I would be impressed to learn that Russia still has the ability to make a nuclear reactor on EARTH.
They plan
My plan is this orgy with Anna Kendrick (if I can pull her, wife might say yes) on the moon
Can I join? We'll have to invite Aya cash too of course.
Everyone can join, still in the planning phase
They can't even afford to make their own space station, and are planning to reuse their chunk of the ISS despite it being leaky AF and full of bacteria they can't control. How TF do they plan to land cosmonauts on the moon with a nuclear reactor when they're so broke they can't even be bothered to renew an orbital lab?
The big claims are quite similar to the big lies.
No shit look at the user profile :DD
Do you want morloks? Because that's how you get morloks.
Escaping to the one place uncorrupted by capitalism?
Code name A3-5