Getting Space Nuclear Off the Ground
October 17, 2025
In the 2015 movie The Martian, one of the many tasks that astronaut Mark Watney must perform to survive on the red planet is, of all things, dusting. He spends part of each day sweeping dirt off solar panels to ensure they provide power to his habitat. The pernicious effects of Martian dust on solar arrays is a challenge that a real crewed mission to Mars will have to contend with. The fragility of solar power could affect missions closer to Earth, too: Night on the Moon lasts two weeks and some craters are in permanent shadow.
“Solar lets you visit. Nuclear lets you build,” write Bhavya Lal and Roger M. Myers in Issues. If humans are to have a persistent presence in space, they argue, nuclear power is a necessity: “The future of US human space activities, including any sustained presence on the Moon and a human mission to Mars, requires the continuous, robust power that only nuclear fission can provide.”
Recognizing this, NASA has recently set an ambitious goal of landing a high-power nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030. Can the United States overcome decades of failed efforts to launch a nuclear fission system in space? Lal and Myers offer a strategy for getting a space nuclear system off the ground.