Sees article about a new and innovative embezzlement method. Concludes that they're out of ideas.

But then you build a much bigger one on earth. New nuclear power plants are often designed to generate over 1000 MW, NASA has designed small modular nuclear plants to deploy at space bases that generate 10 KW, a completely different scale.

And if ta rocket explodes carrying erniched uranium...

Well, you can't put permanent infrastructure on the moon without a plan to power it. So, a power plant has to be the first step, that's why NASA has the kilopower program, even though we don't have a permanent moon base yet.

Space lasers!!

The moon

Russia's got more of a space program than the US at this point. And they've continued to build and modernize their nuclear infrastructure, with the youngest plant coming online as recently as 2020 and seven in the pipe.

They're two industries the country has keep in relative working order while the rest of the economy was scrapped for parts back in the '90s/'00s.

Insane to think they are in a position to colonize the moon when they're quagmired in Ukraine and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of young men to keep at it. But they have the kit to try in a way no other county - except maybe China or India - could hope to.

The next day: "well ho-ly shit..."

And that was supposed to take 3 days, so a decade here means at least a thousand years.

Yeah, that sounds doable.

Also, nuclear power plants are steam powered. Good luck. They /might/ drop a nuclear battery, like the kind in some old satellites or apace probes, on the moon, generating a couple hundred watts with 1970s technology.

On the moon isn't really "in space" in terms of temperature distribution because the heat actually has somewhere to go, the moon.

Would only be cool enough at night though.

So... The US has plans to build nuclear generators on the moon too, kilopower has been an ongoing project for the past decade and I have no doubt we'll be ready to deploy one of these reactors as soon as we start building infrastructure on the moon again in the near future.

Nuclear power is not new for space, it's an obvious choice, one of only two choices in fact. And for what it's worth, Russia/USSR has had far more nuclear powered space probes over the years than the US has, so this isn't exactly new for them either.

As for cooling, yeah, if you generate power you need to dissipate that heat. Your generator will put out heat which needs to be dealt with and then using that electricity will also generate heat which needs to be dissipated. That said, one kind of power is not harder than another, dissipating a megawatt of solar power is just as complicated as a megawatt of nuclear. So the real question is: how much power do you need? The complexity of the project will scale relative to that.

All in all, we've used nuclear power in space before and we will need to do it again, radiators are not all that hard.

You don't understand, the moon needs to be liberated from lunar nazis.

Ah, so I have a joke about Soviet corruption that applies to modern Russia too

A brand new apartment building in Moscow collapses. Investigators are sent to interrogate the suspects.

First they ask the sand. The sand defends itself: "How could you even suspect me? I'm so white, pure of heart!"

Second they ask a brick. The brick replies: "Look at me, so red. An exemplary communist, how could you suspect me?"

Last, they ask the cement. The cement goes: "Why are you blaming me? I wasn't even there!"

Reactors on earth are huge and built to run at 100% all the time because that's the most economical way to do it. That is not a physics requirement, it's just the most profitable for the current economic environment. You can design a reactor that can throttle output if you need to and many small modular reactors currently in the licensing approval process include this ability.

Nevermind the fact that a "large" RTG only puts out about 100 watts of electricity and it's nuclear fuel must be bred in reactors beforehand. There is only enough RTG fuel for maybe 20 large units on the planet right now.

Wait, why would wind and water be rare on other planets? Finding good places to do water-based renewables is probably gonna be difficult on most planets, but shouldn't most planets with atmospheres have wind?

This is nottheonion. You understand the point of this place right?

I'd rather be stuck on the moon than deal with the bullshit down here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_reactor

As often as not they were chasing Americans' empty promises (and occasionally achieving the impossible as a result).

The hydrogen bomb, the probe into Venus, the Mirr Space Station... all launched in response to American campaigns.

But the USSR of the 60s/70s was a wildly different place from post collapse Nationalist Russia. They scraped much of their R&D infrastructure for parts under Yeltsin.

They can plan it all they want

Autistic child joke is not cool.

Also, I kinda feel for Russian folks. Propaganda is a hell of a drug, and from what I’ve seen in some gaming chats many aren’t swallowing it, and seem aware of their situation.

But not as much as cheese!

Hopefully none