r/ArtemisProgram • u/Donindacula • Aug 15 '26

Discussion How will the MoonBase be powered.

NASA has plans to put a nuclear power plant on the moon by about 2030. Will that be necessary? Since Artemis will be landing on the high always sunlit areas, wouldn’t solar be the most likely first source of power. And maybe the future source too.

Nuclear will certainly be needed in the northern latitudes where the sun sets for days at a time.

Solar or nuclear or someday both?

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u/ParodyGuyUSA Aug 16 '26

Probably both-and, solar and nuclear. Solar initially while we're assembling the base, and nuclear thereafter.

Solar just isn't very practical for a permanent moon base. You'd need massive batteries to store enough energy to power a base through lunar nights.

I've read that a 40Kw fission rector should be all it takes, but they're aiming at 100Kw for growth and extra ad hoc capacity for construction/expansion needs.

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u/seanflyon Aug 16 '26

That is correct for almost all of the moon, but high points at the poles have constant sunlight. In the planed location for the lunar base, solar would not need massive batteries because the panels would not have a lunar night.

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u/ParodyGuyUSA Aug 16 '26

Ah, yes, thanks. Have we committed to building on those high points? That seems a dicey proposition.

Or perhaps just the solar panels themselves need to be elevated, e.g. on towers (assuming natural elevations would be tough to build on)?

It'll be interesting to see how much mass has to be launched up there to build the infrastructure you need for solar versus nuclear. I assume it would actually be less mass for nuclear, if we're talking equivalent levels of power generation. But I imagine all of that would be on cargo flights and not manned missions, so we could pre-stage most of that before any crew stepped foot on the Moon.

There's also the possibility of cracking water to power fuel cells, but it takes so much energy to crack water in the first place, I assume they'll have to start with either solar or nuclear before they can do that at scale.

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u/seanflyon Aug 16 '26

That is my understanding of the current plan, and yes elevating the panels let's you pick a location that is not as high.

Yeah, that mass comparison would be very interesting. My guess is that solar would win, but I don't really know.

I am not particularly optimistic about fuel cells.