Russia considers building nuclear power plants with China on the moon

Russia announced on Wednesday (local time), "We are reviewing a project with China to build a nuclear power plant on the moon by 2035." After the United States achieved the historic feat of becoming the first private company to successfully land on the moon last month, there is a noticeable momentum as both Russia and China appear to be actively entering the future space race.

According to Reuters, Yury Ivanovich Borisov, Director-General of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), said on the day that Russia is seriously considering a project to build a power plant on the lunar surface from 2033 to 2035 together with Chinese colleagues. "Solar panels cannot provide enough power for a lunar settlement, but nuclear power can,” he said. “This is a very serious challenge and must proceed in an automatic mode without human intervention."

Russia also revealed plans to build a nuclear-powered cargo spacecraft. "Finding a way to cool the reactor will be the key," Borisov said. "All technical issues related to the rest of the project have been resolved."

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the U.S. claim that Russia was planning to deploy nuclear weapons in space as false and labeled it as a ploy to bring Russia into arms negotiations under Western conditions.


Eun-A Cho achim@donga.com