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.
Seems a bit ambitious for a country that has yet to even land successfully on the moon.
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.
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.
Stupidest plan ever. How exactly do they plan to send the power back to earth? And who is going to operate and maintain the systems?
Lasers would be a viable option in space for power delivery.
Yea me too. Call the AP for a presser.
Russia is reportedly planning to establish a nuclear power plant on the moon within the next decade.
…Elon Musk…
The moon, which is 384,400 km (238,855 miles) from our planet, moderates Earth’s wobble on its axis, which ensures a more stable climate. It also causes tides in the world’s oceans.
Sure, why not?
Might keep Ukraine from blowing that shit up .
Kiev and Warsaw announce joint space program next week./s
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.
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.
Not much of a problem if you go for the south side, according to NASA. 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?
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?
Lunar chernobyl would be funny enough I’m here for it
with China
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.
Russia doesn’t even have any functioning launch pads for manned flights after the Baikonur Cosmodrome was damaged in November
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.
Crewed or non-crewed even! They can’t even launch crewless Progress resupply vehicles to the ISS right now.
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!
The latest concept for the ROS reflects Roscosmos’ changing situation in recent years, owing to sanctions and the termination of international cooperation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. According to Orlov’s announcement, Russia will separate its modules from the ISS once the program is completed in 2030, forming the core of the ROS, with other modules to follow.
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.
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.
they played a little too much RA2, yuris revenge.
