In April 2025, China reportedly unveiled plans to build a nuclear power plant on the Moon by 2035. This plant would support its planned international lunar research station. The United States countered in August, when acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy reportedly suggested a US reactor would be operational on the Moon by 2030.

Placing an atomic energy source on the lunar surface is “not science fiction,” experts say, but does pose technical challenges.

Trying to get a nuclear reactor on the surface of the moon is going to take time – maybe much longer more than NASA wants. Julia Musto reports