Building Nuclear Power on the Moon

Here's the kind of story that will seem unimportant to the mass media, but could have far reaching implications: NASA is trying to build a nuclear reactor on the moon.

I'm already anticipating the protesters with signs reading, "You ruined Earth/Now you're ruing the Moon' or something terribly sad and poignant. If you're stuck in the 70's and you think nuclear power is bad, none of this will appeal to you.

Humans will probably eventually need to leave the Earth to live somewhere else. (We're talking about the distant future, not next week when the polar ice caps melt and the world is underwater because we didn't recycle.) If we are going to explore space and find another home we will need to colonize other planets and the Moon is a good place to start. Building a nuclear power station could give us the power we need to start building living quarters, landing pads, and observatories. The Discovery article reports that the amount of power NASA is trying to provide would power about 8 U.S. homes, so they are obviously working on long term plans that could put people there. It makes me wish I had gotten into astrophysics.

Putting nuclear power on the moon might seem trivial, but humans in the future could remember this as the first step toward putting a permanent residence on another planet.