this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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I was just curious, mostly because I like to follow space related news and the most I’ve heard of the Chinese missions were related to putting a man on the moon by 2030, so a jump to a full reactor with no news of a base seemed surprising. Especially since the Russian space agency has not been making many moon based plays recently, as their focus has been in satellites and earths orbit.
Also I had to dig further, but the coolant is not water based. Mining and processing the water from the moon would be extremely impractical and would use more energy then the reactor could create, and there would be no way to mine enough to sustain a reactor in general. The planned coolant is liquid sodium based on what the Chinese agency has stated, which will be shipped from Earth.
The planned design also seems to be a fast breeder reactor, which haven’t been used since the 60’s because of uranium enrichment processes, and breeders having a significantly reduced energy output compared to light water reactors. Meaning the plan is probably to mine the uranium directly from the moon.
Also China has been very diligent with their claims, but they too haven’t been completely blameless from making a grandiose claim here or there, or cancelling projects. The Russian agency is far more guilty of this (at least they’re not as bad as nasa lmao) but they constantly cancel plans, or have them stagnate, to a level that raises a question of I’d like to see some progress first. Especially since the moon has not been Russia's main focus for quite a while. I am very excited for this project though! Can’t wait!
If it was just Russia saying it, I'd dismiss it as well as they do have a pretty spotty history of delivering in post Soviet days. China has been a lot better at sticking to the targets they set, and things do move around and get cancelled. That's just how it goes when you're doing something that's never been done before. I'd say it's mostly noteworthy that they are thinking of this at all, but I wouldn't hold my breath on the specific date.
I'm excited to see projects like this being considered as well. My view is that as a civilization, we took a huge detour with the whole internet thing. People used to dream big back in the 70s, we were planning to start making large space stations, moon colonies, etc. And we have the technology necessary to start doing all that stuff, but instead we chose to start focusing on bullshit like chat apps, social media platforms, and so on. So many brilliant people have wasted their lives figuring out how to make more intrusive ads or how to track users across different sites. All of this stuff provides no actual value to society and doesn't advance civilization forward. Internet sort of became like a roach motel for us.
So, seeing countries actually building ambitious real world projects is incredibly exciting to me. Maybe this sort of stuff will rekindle the spark of genuine exploration and pushing the boundaries of humanity forward.