A high-stakes race between Washington, Beijing, and Moscow to deploy nuclear reactors on the moon is accelerating, as superpowers scramble to secure continuous power for permanent extraterrestrial bases and resource mining.

Humanity's return to the lunar surface is no longer merely a symbolic exercise in planting national flags. Instead, global space powers are preparing to anchor permanent, industrialised infrastructure that requires vast and uninterrupted energy reserves, Al Jazeera reported. Conventional solar arrays cannot sustain human outposts through the punishing two-week lunar night, when surface temperatures plummet below minus 130 degrees Celsius and darkness renders photovoltaic panels useless.

Surviving the brutal lunar night

To overcome this environmental bottleneck, space agencies are turning to compact fission surface power systems. Unlike solar installations, small nuclear reactors can operate continuously for a decade or more without refuelling, generating dozens of kilowatts to run life-support systems, maintain critical habitat temperatures, and recharge robotic exploration fleets.

Under its Artemis programme, NASA has backed preliminary engineering designs for a 40-kilowatt uranium-powered reactor, aiming for deployment near the lunar south pole in the early 2030s. Not to be outdone, Russia's Roscosmos and the China National Space Administration have forged an alliance to construct an automated nuclear power plant for their joint International Lunar Research Station between 2033 and 2035. Al Jazeera reported that Moscow has indicated it could contribute specialised automated technology to install the reactor without human intervention.

The contested scramble for lunar resources

The rush to install nuclear capacity is directly linked to the commercial and strategic value of the moon's untapped wealth. Both geopolitical blocs have targeted the lunar south pole, where deep, permanently shadowed craters hold vast reserves of water ice.

Processing this ice into liquid hydrogen and oxygen would provide life support for crews and rocket propellant for deep-space missions, turning the moon into an interplanetary refuelling station. Furthermore, the lunar regolith contains valuable deposits of rare-earth elements and helium-3, a potential fuel for future clean-fusion energy on Earth. Developing these extraction industries will demand billions of Australian dollars in capital alongside continuous, high-output industrial power that only nuclear fission can reliably deliver.

Launch hazards and radiological perils

Despite the technological appeal, the prospect of rocketing radioactive materials through Earth's atmosphere has raised acute safety alarms. Independent scientists warn that a catastrophic launch failure or an upper-atmosphere booster explosion could scatter toxic, enriched nuclear fuel across terrestrial ecosystems.

Space agencies maintain that reactors would be transported in cold, unactivated states and only brought critical once firmly embedded on the moon's surface, where thick layers of lunar soil can act as natural radiation shields. Nevertheless, Al Jazeera noted that critics remain uneasy about the long-term contamination risks to the pristine celestial environment, as well as the eventual disposal of radioactive waste on a world lacking geological containment facilities.

Fragile treaties in an unpoliced frontier

The race also threatens to expose the fragility of international space governance. The landmark Outer Space Treaty of 1967 explicitly bans weapons of mass destruction from orbit and celestial bodies, but it does not prohibit peaceful nuclear energy generation.

Without updated multilateral frameworks, analysts caution that nations establishing nuclear reactors could declare sweeping "safety zones" around their installations. Such measures could effectively cordon off mineral-rich territory, creating de facto sovereign domains on an ostensibly shared frontier.