R0lls-Royce is going nuclear on the moon. OK, not exactly, but it is developing a modular nuclear reactor with funding from the UK Space Agency. After giving Rolls-Royce more than $300,000 last year to conduct a study, the agency recently announced $3.55 million in new funding to develop a nuclear micro-reactor that can be used to power a future moon base. And according to Rolls-Royce, the reactor should be ready to send to the moon by 2029.
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It may sound a little ridiculous that Rolls-Royce is developing a nuclear reactor that the UK plans to send to the moon, but nuclear power does have its advantages over solar. People living on the future moon base would have access to a consistent power source regardless of the time of day. And unless we discover that dinosaurs actually did previously live on the moon, it’s not like drilling for moon oil is an option.
In a statement, George Freeman, the UK’s Minister of State at the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, said, “Space exploration is the ultimate laboratory for so many of the transformational technologies we need on Earth: from materials to robotics, nutrition, cleantech and much more. As we prepare to see humans return to the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years, we are backing exciting research like this lunar modular reactor with Rolls-Royce to pioneer new power sources for a lunar base.”
And while Rolls-Royce is developing the micro-reactor with a moon base in mind, that’s not the only potential application. The company says it “could support commercial and defence [sic] use cases in addition to those in space.” How that will play out, though, remains to be seen. But hey, the moon’s going nuclear, folks.