this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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It would be cool if they do, but isn't solar power really efficient on the moon? Since there's no atmosphere to get in the way?
Not sure about the logic behind this.
The moon has very long days and night, so for the first power plant something that will work all the time instead of working for 2 weeks and having no power for another 2 is better. You can get a lot of power from solar panes on the moon but because of the longer nights batteries become even more of a problem.
I'm guessing you can get a lot more power out of a compact reactor than from solar panels by weight. My guess would be that Russian and Chinese space agencies ran the basic numbers to decide whether this makes sense or not before making the announcement.