NASA already has a powerful source of energy to power the first bases on the moon
The Americans are intensively preparing to return to the Moon, which is to occur within 5 years. NASA already has ready technologies for building the first bases on this site, and now also for the production of electricity.
NASA has just stated that it has taken a huge step towards realizing the vision of founding the first human colony on the moon. This huge step is a powerful source of electricity that will ensure the normal existence of people in the extreme local environment.
The agency has already completed work on the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) project, under which Kilopower, a compact nuclear reactor, was established. The device is ready for the conquest of the Moon and Mars. A few days ago, the project received the Gears of Government President's Award Winners, which is one of the most important awards given by the President of the United States.
The role of Kilopower will be to provide electricity to power lunar or Martian bases and their heating. The cosmic, mobile nuclear reactor has been successfully tested by NASA Glenn Research Center and Los Alamos National Laboratory engineers for the past few months.
The reactor is maintenance-free, has a capacity of 10 kilowatts and without any service measures is able to supply electricity to two homes for 10 years. The reactor core contains uranium-235. It is surrounded by a beryllium oxide coating that captures neutrons and reflects them back into the core, improving the efficiency of self-regulating fission. The reactor operation is controlled with the help of a single rod with boron carbide.
Heat from the reactor is collected and transferred using passive heating pipes filled with sodium. They provide heat to a set of high-performance Stirling engines. They are closed loop motors and they work on temperature differences that cause the piston to move forward and back, similar to the piston in an internal combustion engine, though with the use of a compressible gas medium, instead of an explosive mixture of gasoline and air. At the same time, it cools the reactor with a heat sink (which looks like an umbrella) and drives the turbine to generate electricity.
The reactor design is modular. This allows you to connect several of them in a network and generate much more needed electricity for a large base. So the first colonizers of the Moon and Mars will have as much energy at their disposal as they need.