The Moon is no longer a lifeless satellite, it’s the next battlefield for global supremacy. The United States, invoking the language of scientific progress, is pushing to deploy nuclear reactors on the lunar surface before China and Russia can. Behind the techno-optimist discourse lies a strategic race for territorial preemption, resource control, and orbital dominance.
A “second space race” driven by energy and empire
Sean Duffy, interim head of NASA, and, tellingly, former Fox News anchor and U.S. Transportation Secretary, has declared the deployment of nuclear reactors on the Moon a top strategic priority for the U.S. space program. According to Politico, Duffy’s internal directive called it nothing less than “the second space race,” echoing Cold War triumphalism just as the first space race did in 1969.
His timeline is aggressive: the first American reactor must be launched by 2029, a direct challenge to China and Russia, who jointly plan to establish their own reactor on the Moon by the early 2030s. These two rivals signed a memorandum of understanding in May to cooperate on building a power station to supply their proposed “international” lunar base, an Orwellian name for a clearly Sino-Russian venture.
Why nuclear? Because solar won’t cut it on the Moon
NASA’s ambition isn’t purely symbolic. The logic is simple and stark: photovoltaic panels don’t survive the lunar night. Fourteen days of uninterrupted darkness make solar energy unreliable unless paired with prohibitively heavy batteries. Nuclear, by contrast, offers density and longevity, a single microreactor, about the size of a car, could power a base for six years, according to Dr. Simon Middleburgh, from the University of Bangor’s Institute for Nuclear Futures.
In an environment where transport costs are astronomical and payloads matter, size is everything. Earth-style reactors, with their massive steel and concrete structures, are not only unfeasible, they would waste energy for bases that will initially be compact. The focus is now on microreactors, kilowatt-scale units transportable by rocket and capable of autonomous operation.
Safety is relative, but cost isn’t
Let’s dispense with the science fiction: a Chernobyl on the Moon is unlikely. No atmosphere means no firestorms. Little gravity and limited oxygen reduce risk. Still, the challenges are serious. Heat dissipation without convection, easy on Earth, is far more complex in the lunar vacuum. Engineers will need to rethink thermal management from the ground up.
More mundane, but politically toxic, is the cost. Building, launching, and establishing just one microreactor could run into billions. And what happens when it fails? Experts agree: redundancy is a must, which means doubling or tripling the number of units, and the costs. In a U.S. fiscal climate increasingly allergic to public infrastructure but ready to fund interplanetary supremacy, this raises fundamental questions about priorities.
Technopower or technocolonialism?
Beneath the veil of scientific progress lies a return to colonial logic. As Dr. Ian Whittaker of the University of Nottingham bluntly puts it, “There are no laws preventing lunar occupation. Whoever gets there first gets to claim the territory.” Hence, planting a nuclear reactor becomes a geopolitical act, a flag in uranium form.
Install the power source, argue it’s essential for a future base, and thereby assert control over surrounding territory. The U.S., China, and Russia are not racing for science, they are racing for land, resources, and leverage. The Moon is not yet lawless, but it is ungoverned. No new treaties bind nations to cooperative development. Unlike the International Space Station, a relic of a more hopeful time, the Moon is poised to become a militarised frontier.
2029 or bust: optimism, or escalation?
NASA’s 2029 goal is ambitious. Most experts interviewed suggest 2032 is more realistic. But in Washington, realism takes a backseat to hegemony. Being first matters more than being ready. The U.S. administration views lunar energy not as a technological achievement but as a symbol of strategic continuity in an age of declining terrestrial dominance.
In truth, there’s little appetite for collaboration with adversaries. The geopolitical climate, poisoned by the war in Ukraine, tensions in Taiwan, and spiralling sanctions regimes, has made multilateralism a dead letter. Middleburgh and others may hope for renewed international cooperation, but the space race is now a zero-sum game, and Washington is playing to win.
Lunar reactors as geopolitical weapons
It’s worth asking what a Moon dotted with reactors really signifies. It is not just a power grid, it’s a grid of influence. Each reactor, each outpost, each mining probe contributes to a creeping claim of control. This is not the beginning of a new space age. It’s the continuation of terrestrial geopolitics, extended 384,400 km away.
What we are witnessing is not progress, but projection, of force, of presence, of power. In that sense, Sean Duffy is right: this is the second space race. But it may end the same way as the first, with one flag raised, and many others watching, too late.
