In April 2025, China reportedly unveiled plans to build a nuclear power plant on the Moon by 2035. This plant would support its planned international lunar research station. The United States countered in August, when acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy reportedly suggested a US reactor would be operational on the Moon by 2030.

This is about space exploration. This is about this next phase,” Duffy, interim NASA administrator and ‘The Real World’ alum, said

Trying to get a nuclear reactor on the surface of the moon is going to take time – maybe much longer more than NASA wants. Julia Musto reports