The Sean Duffy Headline

The Space News of the day is seemingly that Interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy has said that we need to build a nuclear power station on the moon by 2030 if we're really serious about getting to the moon and establishing a presence there.  

"We're in a race to the moon, in a race with China to the moon. And to have a base on the moon, we need energy," Duffy told reporters in response to a question about reports that surfaced earlier in the week about his ambitious directive to launch a 100-kilowatt nuclear reactor to the moon by 2030. Such a reactor would produce roughly the same amount of energy as an average U.S. household uses every 3.5 days.  

Statements like that last one pretty much make me throw up, and this one is no exception.  He mixes units between 100 kilowatts and the energy a household uses in 3.5 days, which would turn that into Watt-Hours, making the 100 kiloWatt number meaningless.  Does he really mean kWH?  That leads us to multiply 100 kilowatts * 3.5 days * 24 hours/day or 8400 kWH.  If he means in 3.5 days, a house uses 100 kWH then we divide 100 by 24*3.5, which says the nuclear power generator is producing 1.19 Watts, but 1.2W is nothing.  I have some 18650 cheap Lithium Ion batteries that deliver almost 10 times that - 9.25 Watts - although I'll readily admit a chunk of nuclear fuel will last far longer than a charge on one of those batteries.   

I think that disqualifies that second approach and this nuclear power plant must be 100 kW and 8,400 kWH.  And that statement "... roughly the same amount of energy as an average U.S. household uses every 3.5 days" is still nonsense. 

100 kW isn't much - it's more than small house backup generator, which might be in the range of 20 to 25 kW, but it's not an outrageous number.   I would guesstimate that a small group of buildings on the moon getting baked by the sun for two weeks and frozen by not having that sun for two weeks could need 100 kW, if not more.  Depends on how big the colony is, how it's laid out, what they need to run instruments and important details like that.

Still, the most remarkable aspect of this story is that it's not really news.  NASA has been talking about nuclear power for the moon and other places for years.  One approach, first mentioned here in March of '18 has been called  KRUSTY - Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology.  KRUSTY went through testing from November '17 through March '18.  

That's just the first one that comes to mind (KRUSTY kinda sticks in my mind), but it's not the only one.  Rolls Royce, yes - the luxury car maker, has been working with the UK Space Agency to produce a small nuclear power source for use on the moon or Mars. 

Various government agencies have been working on reactors for power in space since the early days of the space program.  The only thing about this week's talk that seems new to me is just the guy giving the talk.   

Rendering of one of the Kilopower Stirling Engines from KRUSTY.  These were rated as 10kW for 10 years.  Image credit: NASA