We know Rolls-Royce mainly from cars, but now the manufacturer wants to do more with space. She already made aircraft engines, but now she wants more. Much more: it wants to build a nuclear reactor on the moon. It sounds a little stern, like some kind of crazy cowboy story, but nothing could be further from the truth: She won the bid. He will receive 3.3 million euros from the British Space Agency to financially support this project.
James Bond
A British company builds a nuclear reactor on the moon. Hasn’t this already happened once in a James Bond movie? Moonraker for example? No doubt there were many similar situations in 007, but perhaps they were less intentional. Rolls-Royce isn’t going to put a Borssele II on the moon: it’s going to build a small reactor with the goal of powering people on the moon.
This is very important if we want to live permanently on the moon. After all, we have to craft and build all sorts of things and that takes energy. Now it’s up to the well-known car brand to make the first microreactor prototype. Of course, other variables for power generation were also considered, but we all know how that can go wrong: There are all kinds of rovers that don’t work on Mars because their solar panels have dust and the sun can no longer provide them. With energy, plus there are sometimes long periods in the dark. There are no winds on the moon, so a windmill is of little use. And water, well, we know that too: In short, we don’t get very far based on the natural ways of generating energy that we know.
A nuclear reactor on the moon
The reason the British Space Agency, funded in part by the British government, has chosen to build such a nuclear reactor is because it believes that space exploration is the ultimate test site for basic technology that we can put to good use at our site. planet. Think of simply robots, food, and materials. It is also not surprising that Rolls-Royce was chosen specifically: the brand is British and there are many Rolls nuclear power plants in the UK. This is something more than just a car factory. Meanwhile, other manufacturers are also busy helping people settle on the moon for a longer period of time. For example, Nokia is working on 4G connectivity on the moon.
NASA wants to put people on the moon again for the first time in the 2025 lunar mission, but it’s likely that it will only be astronauts during subsequent missions in the 2030s that they will reside permanently on the moon. Kind of ISS, but different.
