The world may be witnessing the early steps of a twenty-first-century space race. While the Trump administration has cut 24 percent of NASA’s 2026 budget, the country is also accelerating its plans to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030 to meet its goal of establishing a permanent base on the lunar surface.

The 100-kilowatt reactor is over double the power of earlier designs, for which NASA issued $5 million in contracts to support in 2022. While the US had been developing plans for a nuclear reactor on the moon, the sped-up timeline may be a response to China and Russia’s announcement earlier this year of their intent to pursue their own automated lunar nuclear power station by 2035.

Beijing is also targeting its first Moon landing for 2030. The new directive accelerates the timeline to ensure deployment by the end of the decade, positioning nuclear power as an important enabler for a future lunar economy, a long-term mission to Mars, and geopolitical influence in space. 

Read more in the National Interest.

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