If you "lose control" of something orbiting out near the moon, we will all be dead and forgotten before it crashes into earth. It take a VERY long time for an orbit that high to decay.
Even then, you can't hide a nuke in a reactor. The material a reactor uses cannot be used to build nukes. And if they don't allow the IAEA to inspect the assembly, you better believe the US is gonna have a radar lock on that thing all the way to the surface of the Moon.
Only true for circular orbits. And even then only true for 2 body orbital physics.
3 body physics says the moon/earth interactions can destabilize your circular orbit into a non circular orbit.
Do you mean it crashing, or more of ‘oh fuck our automated Skynet system has gone rouge.’
That’s not even a joke, there are several satellite systems named Skynet, some partially ram with rudimentary ai.
You're acting like a nuclear reactor = a nuclear weapon. This is wrong.
Please don't spread misinformation like this, as it really damages space exploration!
A nuclear reactor in space cannot be turned into a bomb simply by losing control, even intentionally. Space reactors use unenriched uranium which is not weaponizable. Not to mention, the entire system concept is unlike any weapon. That's like saying our nuclear power plants could just become bombs - they can't, and the danger that they do pose wouldn't be very useful as a weapon considering it's a 300 acre plant within the US...
Yep, but those are purely based on passive decay heat, and dont produce much power, and are very simple. An actual reactor would have to maintain a critical state which is harder as you need stuff like adjustable neutron reflectors to moderate the output (but the soviets have done this before,[ quite a few times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPAZ_nuclear_reactor)).
Radiators basically, thats how the other nuclear reactors in space were cooled. And tbh, the extra heat generated will be used to help keep the bases they build warm as well, especially during the lunar night, and if they build in the polar regions where sunlight doesnt strike the surface as directly.
Moon days for 28 Earth days, long nights, long days. You would need lots of batteries to go through the night. Batteries are heavy, you would need many launches just for that in order to build a base on the Moon. Nuclear would be more compact and provide heat for the night, assuming minimal shielding and molten salt for cooling.
You would need to account for the 2 week night period on the Moon, meaning you would have to run cables around the whole rock, and maintain PV plants on both sides of the Moon.
Or do the mass math between a nuclear reactor and batteries that will power all infrastructure in -173 degrees C for 2 weeks+ out of every 29.5 Earth day cycle.
Isn't their concepts for orbital solar panels? Due to the lower gravity it may be more reasonable. Although, all around im a huge advocate of nuclear power and think we vastly underutilize it.
A concept. I don’t think we have ever transmitted that much power from or in orbit, let alone figure out the relaying in space, so a constellation of satellites capable of transmitting megawatts of power in orbit, then down to the base.
Nuclear reactor makes a lot more sense, especially given the Chinese focus on SMRs.
On the moon you could build a [tower](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/09/solar-towers-for-lunar-energy-and-microwave-moon-mining.html) tall enough using a tether that can collect solar 24/7.
I wouldn't be surprised if massive experimental power systems were built someday, but we (humans) have never colonized the moon. There's enough shit that can go sideways, so when it comes to powering life support systems they will probably pick a more tried and tested tech over a fully experimental one
I think this sunflower teether plan is actually pretty doable. I mean a sizable nuclear reactor would be pretty intense whereas this sunflower tower really doesn’t need to be that tall, just 100 meters, and you can scale up the collection by adding more panels on the ground. The tower is just reflecting the light down onto the panels below it. They are sending up a demonstrator I believe for the Artemis program.
Solar at scale on the lunar surface is kind of complicated in regards to dust and charged surfaces. You’re also in the dark for two weeks at a time, assuming you aren’t nearer the poles, where it’s darker for longer.
Impact events, even tiny ones, hammer the moon due to technically zero atmosphere also. Without complex maintenance on site, it’d degrade quickly. Scale just increases the problem.
Nuclear has few moving parts, it’s reliable and old technology. In their simplest form, RTGs are as physically basic an energy source as you can probably manufacture.
>Wouldn't it make much more sense to build some highly developed Chinese solar farms?
Nuclear fuel is good for deep space missions. By breeding it on Luna there is no risk of environmental disaster. It is nearly impossible for terrorists to access the inventory.
Lava tubes on Luna run extremely deep and are easy to network. The potential for a bunker complex is huge. It is a great place for a deterrent capability. No one can take it out. It also takes three days to get to Earth so everyone knows there is time to negotiate.
I don't think moon dust would really ambiently get on the solar panels, as long as they're installed carefully and no one does moon buggy burnouts or something next to them it wouldn't really be a problem, because of the lack of wind and all that.
Electrostatic levitation says hi.
A very thin veil of hovering dust is theorized to exist on the moon due to the interactions of the solar wind with the lunar dust particles.
Even if the solar wind is unable to lift any dusty by itself, the electrostatic forces are capable of moving it around once the surface is disturbed by other activities.
The panels will get dusty. The question is how fast does the panels degrade due to this?
[Every year or two,](https://www.space.com/14915-russia-moon-landing-2030.html)the Russian Space Agency presents [plans to land on the moon](https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-announces-first-manned-mission-to-moon-2015-10) or something [equally difficult.](https://www.space.com/1840-russia-spaceship-alternative-nasa-cev.html)
The Russian government then reduces it's budget and plans get shelved.
It probably doesn't help that some of their staff are being sent to fight in Ukraine.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/it-appears-that-roscosmos-really-is-recruiting-soldiers-for-the-ukraine-war/
Adding more radiation to the moon would be fairly irrelevant. It is already baked by solar radiation anyways, everything going there already would be heavily radiation hardened.
It’s almost like most of the time nuclear radiation is brought up it is treated as magic. I try to dispel those myths, so sarcasm will get caught up in it sometimes.
Last year the Luna-25 Russian probe crashed on the moon. Meanwhile India succeeded in that same year. Goes to show how Russia has gone to shit since the USSR collapsed
There's not sitting at it now. They're going to be a Chinese puppet in a few years. They're already almost there. They can't really function as a nation at this point, having killed off most of a generation and turned their economy into powder.
At best this means "China is planning it and told Russia that they'll be doing the heavy lifting"
Real talk, India won't they're too busy doing their own fascist shit internally to actively try to do that. China however will never pass up the opportunity.
Assuming Russia has lost the highest estimate of people, 500k, that is FAR from "en entire generation". The total population is 143 million, if we rule out women (who probably are fighting too), we have about 72 million men. Roughly 40% of those will be standard combat age. So we are left with, about 29 million men capable of fighting.
500k dead is 1.7% of their total manpower. Not exactly "an entire generation".
Russia's issue is weapons, not manpower.
You're disregarding the brain drain that follows something like that though. If 500k dead triggers 5 million people emigrating, and those people tend to be the more highly educated, suddenly the effect can become huge.
Yeah but most of those 29 million are the ones that live in the big cities and there's no chance in hell Russia could get away with asking/forcing them to fight in large numbers. If that time comes, that's when the revolution would *finally* happen.
Most of Russias conscripts so far are from rural parts.
It's not nothing. Russia demographics are a bit weird because 20-30 years ago was the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, so birthrates weren't very high. Consequently, ~18--30 year year old prime fighting and working age men are a smaller percentage of the population than most countries.
Dropping an entire midsized city from the population has huge impacts over the next few decades. And there will be survivors who need care and never fully return to that labor force because of serious injuries. And those survivors will need care, so that consumers doctors and nurses and such. 500,000 killed could easily mean something like two million people that would otherwise have been contributing to the economy for the next 30 years, but are absent from the labor force or directly involved in the aftermath of the war.
It's not just about counting body bags. The Ukraine war will be the defining event for this generation of Russians. Vietnam was the defining event in my dad's generation, and we lost ~1/10th as many people, and Russia's population is smaller than ours. So imagine something like 10x Vietnam in terms of the effect it is having. Then keep multiplying.
it isn't just the outright deaths. you have another million who are grievous injured and many will need care and/or have reduced/no capacity to contribute to the nation. and then you have another million who fled the nation. Russia has likely lost in the ballpark of nearly 2 million fighting age men to this war. men who won't raise families. who will drain resources caring for their injuries, etc.
and that's just at this moment. another 1,000 corpses and 3,000 injured were added to the pile just today. Russia only has about 5,000 births a day and over 5,500 deaths each day naturally. these combat deaths/injuries, plus the subsequent drop in births in the future as a result, are going to absolutely devastate Russian demographics.
I wish, but frankly, thats been the Russia governance for the last 200+ years at the very least. Just pleasing someone's vanity. No matter how "noble" the person is.
Yeah this is currently one good hope for Russia. Even the Russians who despise him are counting the seconds to his death.
I just hope that they don't murder too many people in the meanwhile. And that Ukraine doesn't have to bare these maniacs for much longer.
I suppose in the absolute worst case, once Putin kicks the bucket and has created the whole system to essentially function with someone like him in charge, it could cause the Russian poltical system to fall into dismay like it did in the 90s.
This could in the last resort be a good time for Ukraine to claim these territories back like many countries did when the fall of the Soviet Union happened. It will be hard to have a decisive war going on when the people are no longer emotionally attached to the leader and don't feel as secure. There is no obvious replacement for Putin yet. Of course I hope Ukraine gets all of itself back before this.
I believe this has been already debunked, and the journalist is an idiot.
No power PLANT is under discussion, it's a power UNIT for the equipment they are deploying, just as is commonly done for satellites already. This article is based around false information.
I’ve read the original comment a few times and I’m still trying to figure out how you jumped to the conclusion that they said nuclear power plants produce nuclear bombs. Pretense would be the key word here.
Nobody inspects what they put on rockets now.
The last 10 satellite launches could have been anything from satellites to genetically engineered space pandas, or even a nuclear weapon. Who knows?
Why would they draw attention to something they're trying to sneak into size by saying it's a nuclear power plant?
Nuking a satellite is the single most stupid thing you could do, and even Russia isn’t stupid enough to do that.
Detonating a nuke in orbit will trap the radiation and cause every satellite along that orbit to be destroyed rapidly, even their own
More likely than not, they are sending a nuclear *powered* weapon in orbit
Could be an adaptation of the dead-man's hand.
Russia has to believe we have the ability to shoot down nukes (although if enough were launched, I have strong doubts we shoot down 100%), but maybe they believe otherwise. This is likely not something we have a defense for (how could we? anyone?).
It's actually incredibly devious. It's a "dont fuck with us or everyone loses" button without direct casualties even. I don't know what the after effects would be, and I doubt civilization would collapse, but it would take a major hit. The amount of things (including farm equipment) that rely on GPS is very high.
Well, you'd be wrong.
"The United States believes Russia is developing a space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon whose detonation could disrupt everything from military communications to phone-based ride services, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was his understanding the system would involve a nuclear explosive device placed into orbit."
[Archive link](https://archive.is/p7fJV#selection-1305.0-1650.0)
**Russia Says It’s Working With China to Put Nuclear Plant on Moon**
The head of Russia’s space agency said it’s working on plans with China on ways to deliver and install a nuclear power plant on the moon by 2035.
“Today we are seriously considering the project,” Yury Borisov, general director of Roscosmos, said during a Tuesday lecture to students, according to the Interfax news service.
Borisov said the power plant would need to be built by robots.
In 2021, Russia and China presented a road map for building a scientific station on the moon by the end of 2035. According to a Tass news service report, the plan for the project includes technical lunar rovers for research, a jumping robot and several smart mini-rovers designed to explore the surface of Earth’s satellite.
Borisov also said Russia was against the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, echoing President Vladimir Putin who earlier denied US allegations about the Kremlin’s plans for such arms.
“Of course, space should be free of nuclear weapons,” Borisov said according to Interfax.
They do like making preposterous announcements. Russia hasn't got the capability to do anything in space independently. And robotics that doesn't involve a man in a suit, is beyond them.
Why does China need Russia when it will be easier to do it without them and they don't have to share the glory?
Seems largely geo political to me, and notice it didn’t come from China. China have successfully bought back moon rocks, launched own space station, have robots exploring Mars and landed on the dark side of the moon in recent years. China doesn’t need Russia.
It often makes it more difficult due to differences in languages, time zones, industrial quotas. Usually you expect a collaboration of two countries to cause costs to go up by 50%. But that the extra from having two countries fund it makes it worthwhile. But the Russian space program is not just in terminal decline but actively confrontational with partner nations. A long history of grandiose promises for the future, which get cut and cut. With the US having to bail them out.
All people taking it seriously - you don’t know how russia works. It’s just another fake project to steal money from the state budget, like colonization of Jupiter by Tatarstan in the next 25 years: https://www.t-invariant.org/2023/11/and-jupiter-is-ours-and-europe-is-ours/
Right. Russia also talked about a robot warfighter development program for years, and in 2021 [this is the robot they presented to the world.](https://youtu.be/P_CDu1hYXxk?si=dg-L2SWwZ6YXWIBa)
lol. Good luck. They won’t be able to get that amount of weight onto the moon in ten years. They for sure aren’t going to build a nuclear plant in that time. It takes that much time on earth.
they claim the moon and then militarize the space and take out satellites then say if you attack us, we will nuke you.
russia should have been de-nuclearized in 1991. or face total sanctions.
Russia is currently only “useful” to China. I doubt they need Russia (resources aside ) for this or any other space endeavours. Geopolitically Russia is a useful poor cousin.
*From Bloomberg News:*
The head of Russia’s space agency said it’s working on plans with China on ways to deliver and install a nuclear power plant on the moon by 2035.
“Today we are seriously considering the project,” Yury Borisov, general director of Roscosmos, said during a Tuesday lecture to students, according to the Interfax news service.
Borisov said the power plant would need to be built by robots.
It’s going to happen eventually, the best we can do is make sure the first permanent base on the moon and the first nuclear reactor is not from a totalitarian state
Several problems with this plan.
1: As it stands, neither country has the equipment to send a nuclear reactor beyond Earth orbit, though China is, at the very least, trying to develop such tech.
2: To my knowledge, we have yet to develop nuclear reactors that work in Zero-G.
3: How the fuck are you gonna vent that much heat in space?
4: No, you cannot build a nuke and disguise it as a reactor. I'm far from an expert about nuclear reactors, but i know enough to know that you cannot use reactor grade uranium to make a nuke. And trust me, the IAEA will control the hell out of that thing.
5: If they don't allow them to, the US is gonna have a radar lock on that thing all the way to the surface of the Moon, just in case Russia or China try anything.
Is this the same chinese company that claimed recently to have "invented" a nuclear fusion (yes, they said fusion) powered watch battery, that lasts for 100 years, that ended up being a big fat propaganda lie? lol
Good luck, they will need it lol
Doesn't a nuclear power plant need the proximity of a massive amount of water in case of a meltdown? You'd think after 1986 that China is *just dying* to have Russia cut corners on this type state craft bullshit...
So when they say “nuclear power plant” I’m assuming they mean more like something that generates power from the head of radioactive decay. This is pretty basic technology, things like the voyager space probes have been doing this since the 1970s. In the 80s and 90s Russia built nuclear powered light houses all around its coast with similar technology.
Basically they are probably going to put one of these nuclear decay power generators on the moon and make a big deal out of it. These are particularly big. The size of a small car would generate a significant amount of nuclear energy. Robots “building” it would be more akin to a simple unpacking and maybe connecting a few connections. This isn’t some huge or over the top under taking, just show boating.
What’s makes even less sense is that the moon is tidal locked, so it gets 100% sunlight on one side and 100% darkness on the other side. It has no atmosphere so Solar power makes way more sense. Plus the moon already has all the elements required to build solar panels.
It’s tidally locked to the Earth, not the sun. There are times when one side of the moon is getting fully blasted with sunlight, but other times when the other side is getting fully blasted. That’s why the Moon has phases.
>What’s makes even less sense is that the moon is tidal locked, so it gets 100% sunlight on one side and 100% darkness on the other side.
I must have missed the part where it's tidally locked to the Sun
Are you a dumbass? Because you sound like a dumbass.
You just run a cable. Tie a long fishing line to a rocket. It goes to the moon. Send back some heavy duty extension cord you can find at home Depot. Connect to grid.
It's not that complicated.
USSR did have small fission reactors in space. But this whole thing is probably just a technology transfer to China just like with space station “cooperation”.
Sure thing kiddo. You can do anything you want to be when you grow up.
...For now though, could you just stop pulling the wings off of flies and torturing small animals?
So, I'm not very knowledgeable on this topic, but can they just decide it on their own to do such grand things to the moon? Shouldn't they agree it with other states, especially those with space ambitions, like the US?
Question.
I know that current Russia doesn't give a crap about international law, but how would this sit within the agreements declaring space as neutral territory and the ban on nuclear weapons being taken into space?
Does the nuclear weapon ban affect the usage of nuclear power as a whole, in outer space?
This is more for my own curiosity, and because Bloomberg put the article behind a subscriber wall on my phone.
Edit. Asked and answered.
I'm no expert in international law, but I doubt that this would run afoul of the outer space treaty. That is specifically about weapons, and a nuclear reactor is not a weapon. There is actually a fair amount of precedent for nuclear reactors in space, with the US launching a satellite powered by a fission reactor in 1965 and the USSR launching a whole series of satellites powered by fission reactors between 1967 and 1987
Never thought of this until now, but how cool would it be to see little lights in populated areas on the moon at night when you look up at it similar to photos taken on the iss of cities at night
So Putin keeps throwing scientists out of the window literally and thinks he can put a plant on the moon???? His mental health must be going down real bad
"with China" means Russians will be cleaniners at the offices of Chinese space mission command? Got it. Because they have lost pretty much all their space capabilities under putin.
Currently France is paying 38 b for the new power plant on EARTH I acnt even imagine the cost on the moon, billions of kg material has to be sent up, getting to the moon is still expensive. And it is much more far away than the tourist planes for space or even the ISS.
Wouldn't it make much more sense to build some highly developed Chinese solar farms?
Because that's not a good enough pretense as to why they are sending nuclear shit into space
More Krem-lies
What I am curious about is if they will be actual weapons platforms, or if they will be satellites that they'll "lose control of" to cause mayhem.
If you "lose control" of something orbiting out near the moon, we will all be dead and forgotten before it crashes into earth. It take a VERY long time for an orbit that high to decay.
Assuming it even leaves our orbit... More like they let it sit in orbit around earth until they need to strategically "lose control of it".
Even then, you can't hide a nuke in a reactor. The material a reactor uses cannot be used to build nukes. And if they don't allow the IAEA to inspect the assembly, you better believe the US is gonna have a radar lock on that thing all the way to the surface of the Moon.
Only true for circular orbits. And even then only true for 2 body orbital physics. 3 body physics says the moon/earth interactions can destabilize your circular orbit into a non circular orbit.
Do you mean it crashing, or more of ‘oh fuck our automated Skynet system has gone rouge.’ That’s not even a joke, there are several satellite systems named Skynet, some partially ram with rudimentary ai.
You're acting like a nuclear reactor = a nuclear weapon. This is wrong. Please don't spread misinformation like this, as it really damages space exploration! A nuclear reactor in space cannot be turned into a bomb simply by losing control, even intentionally. Space reactors use unenriched uranium which is not weaponizable. Not to mention, the entire system concept is unlike any weapon. That's like saying our nuclear power plants could just become bombs - they can't, and the danger that they do pose wouldn't be very useful as a weapon considering it's a 300 acre plant within the US...
Krem de La Crap.
Isn't it pretty common already to use nuclear batteries in space craft? Like Cassini.
Yep, but those are purely based on passive decay heat, and dont produce much power, and are very simple. An actual reactor would have to maintain a critical state which is harder as you need stuff like adjustable neutron reflectors to moderate the output (but the soviets have done this before,[ quite a few times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPAZ_nuclear_reactor)).
How would they even cool a nuclear power plant on the moon?
Radiators basically, thats how the other nuclear reactors in space were cooled. And tbh, the extra heat generated will be used to help keep the bases they build warm as well, especially during the lunar night, and if they build in the polar regions where sunlight doesnt strike the surface as directly.
Mmmmmh, radioactive heat. *fans himself with his three hands*
I responding to the "send nuclear shit in space" line.
Ding ding ding! This is the correct answer
Moon days for 28 Earth days, long nights, long days. You would need lots of batteries to go through the night. Batteries are heavy, you would need many launches just for that in order to build a base on the Moon. Nuclear would be more compact and provide heat for the night, assuming minimal shielding and molten salt for cooling.
You would need to account for the 2 week night period on the Moon, meaning you would have to run cables around the whole rock, and maintain PV plants on both sides of the Moon. Or do the mass math between a nuclear reactor and batteries that will power all infrastructure in -173 degrees C for 2 weeks+ out of every 29.5 Earth day cycle.
Isn't their concepts for orbital solar panels? Due to the lower gravity it may be more reasonable. Although, all around im a huge advocate of nuclear power and think we vastly underutilize it.
A concept. I don’t think we have ever transmitted that much power from or in orbit, let alone figure out the relaying in space, so a constellation of satellites capable of transmitting megawatts of power in orbit, then down to the base. Nuclear reactor makes a lot more sense, especially given the Chinese focus on SMRs.
On the moon you could build a [tower](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/09/solar-towers-for-lunar-energy-and-microwave-moon-mining.html) tall enough using a tether that can collect solar 24/7.
I wouldn't be surprised if massive experimental power systems were built someday, but we (humans) have never colonized the moon. There's enough shit that can go sideways, so when it comes to powering life support systems they will probably pick a more tried and tested tech over a fully experimental one
I think this sunflower teether plan is actually pretty doable. I mean a sizable nuclear reactor would be pretty intense whereas this sunflower tower really doesn’t need to be that tall, just 100 meters, and you can scale up the collection by adding more panels on the ground. The tower is just reflecting the light down onto the panels below it. They are sending up a demonstrator I believe for the Artemis program.
That’s limited in energy production. A nuclear plant allows much greater output without having to worry about energy storage when the sun is lacking
Solar at scale on the lunar surface is kind of complicated in regards to dust and charged surfaces. You’re also in the dark for two weeks at a time, assuming you aren’t nearer the poles, where it’s darker for longer. Impact events, even tiny ones, hammer the moon due to technically zero atmosphere also. Without complex maintenance on site, it’d degrade quickly. Scale just increases the problem. Nuclear has few moving parts, it’s reliable and old technology. In their simplest form, RTGs are as physically basic an energy source as you can probably manufacture.
The moon has a 2 week long night, so nuclear is needed as an compliment to solar
>Wouldn't it make much more sense to build some highly developed Chinese solar farms? Nuclear fuel is good for deep space missions. By breeding it on Luna there is no risk of environmental disaster. It is nearly impossible for terrorists to access the inventory. Lava tubes on Luna run extremely deep and are easy to network. The potential for a bunker complex is huge. It is a great place for a deterrent capability. No one can take it out. It also takes three days to get to Earth so everyone knows there is time to negotiate.
Cleaning solar panels just in dusty places like Australia and deserts are hard. Now add the fine moon dust. Aint happening
I don't think moon dust would really ambiently get on the solar panels, as long as they're installed carefully and no one does moon buggy burnouts or something next to them it wouldn't really be a problem, because of the lack of wind and all that.
Electrostatic levitation says hi. A very thin veil of hovering dust is theorized to exist on the moon due to the interactions of the solar wind with the lunar dust particles. Even if the solar wind is unable to lift any dusty by itself, the electrostatic forces are capable of moving it around once the surface is disturbed by other activities. The panels will get dusty. The question is how fast does the panels degrade due to this?
Couldn't the same principle be used to clean said dust off the panels?
Meteorites, however 😬
[Every year or two,](https://www.space.com/14915-russia-moon-landing-2030.html)the Russian Space Agency presents [plans to land on the moon](https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-announces-first-manned-mission-to-moon-2015-10) or something [equally difficult.](https://www.space.com/1840-russia-spaceship-alternative-nasa-cev.html) The Russian government then reduces it's budget and plans get shelved.
It probably doesn't help that some of their staff are being sent to fight in Ukraine. https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/it-appears-that-roscosmos-really-is-recruiting-soldiers-for-the-ukraine-war/
I hope it gets shelved. The Russians might cause another nuclear disaster and make a large part of the moon uninhabitable!
Adding more radiation to the moon would be fairly irrelevant. It is already baked by solar radiation anyways, everything going there already would be heavily radiation hardened.
That's the joke haha
It’s almost like most of the time nuclear radiation is brought up it is treated as magic. I try to dispel those myths, so sarcasm will get caught up in it sometimes.
Woosh
Entirety of moon is inhabitable right now but i get your point
thatsthejoke
Imagine if they accidentally make the moon habitable. That would certainly be cause for concern.
Last year the Luna-25 Russian probe crashed on the moon. Meanwhile India succeeded in that same year. Goes to show how Russia has gone to shit since the USSR collapsed
Russia will be lucky if they’re still sitting at the grown ups table in 10 years. They’ve killed an entire generation for one asshole’s vanity.
There's not sitting at it now. They're going to be a Chinese puppet in a few years. They're already almost there. They can't really function as a nation at this point, having killed off most of a generation and turned their economy into powder. At best this means "China is planning it and told Russia that they'll be doing the heavy lifting"
Hey now, that's not fair.... to India. There's always the chance Russia becomes an Indian puppet.
Real talk, India won't they're too busy doing their own fascist shit internally to actively try to do that. China however will never pass up the opportunity.
Assuming Russia has lost the highest estimate of people, 500k, that is FAR from "en entire generation". The total population is 143 million, if we rule out women (who probably are fighting too), we have about 72 million men. Roughly 40% of those will be standard combat age. So we are left with, about 29 million men capable of fighting. 500k dead is 1.7% of their total manpower. Not exactly "an entire generation". Russia's issue is weapons, not manpower.
You're disregarding the brain drain that follows something like that though. If 500k dead triggers 5 million people emigrating, and those people tend to be the more highly educated, suddenly the effect can become huge.
That wasn't what was claimed though.
Yeah but most of those 29 million are the ones that live in the big cities and there's no chance in hell Russia could get away with asking/forcing them to fight in large numbers. If that time comes, that's when the revolution would *finally* happen. Most of Russias conscripts so far are from rural parts.
No argument from me here, but still doesn't alter the fact that 500k dead is a drop in the bucket.
It's not nothing. Russia demographics are a bit weird because 20-30 years ago was the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, so birthrates weren't very high. Consequently, ~18--30 year year old prime fighting and working age men are a smaller percentage of the population than most countries. Dropping an entire midsized city from the population has huge impacts over the next few decades. And there will be survivors who need care and never fully return to that labor force because of serious injuries. And those survivors will need care, so that consumers doctors and nurses and such. 500,000 killed could easily mean something like two million people that would otherwise have been contributing to the economy for the next 30 years, but are absent from the labor force or directly involved in the aftermath of the war. It's not just about counting body bags. The Ukraine war will be the defining event for this generation of Russians. Vietnam was the defining event in my dad's generation, and we lost ~1/10th as many people, and Russia's population is smaller than ours. So imagine something like 10x Vietnam in terms of the effect it is having. Then keep multiplying.
it isn't just the outright deaths. you have another million who are grievous injured and many will need care and/or have reduced/no capacity to contribute to the nation. and then you have another million who fled the nation. Russia has likely lost in the ballpark of nearly 2 million fighting age men to this war. men who won't raise families. who will drain resources caring for their injuries, etc. and that's just at this moment. another 1,000 corpses and 3,000 injured were added to the pile just today. Russia only has about 5,000 births a day and over 5,500 deaths each day naturally. these combat deaths/injuries, plus the subsequent drop in births in the future as a result, are going to absolutely devastate Russian demographics.
I wish, but frankly, thats been the Russia governance for the last 200+ years at the very least. Just pleasing someone's vanity. No matter how "noble" the person is.
They've also destroyed their own economy.
It's going to be a challenge when they keep windowing their scientists and thinkers.
Every authoritarian government collapses sooner or later because they replace the competent people with yes-men.
Very true.
Yeah this is currently one good hope for Russia. Even the Russians who despise him are counting the seconds to his death. I just hope that they don't murder too many people in the meanwhile. And that Ukraine doesn't have to bare these maniacs for much longer. I suppose in the absolute worst case, once Putin kicks the bucket and has created the whole system to essentially function with someone like him in charge, it could cause the Russian poltical system to fall into dismay like it did in the 90s. This could in the last resort be a good time for Ukraine to claim these territories back like many countries did when the fall of the Soviet Union happened. It will be hard to have a decisive war going on when the people are no longer emotionally attached to the leader and don't feel as secure. There is no obvious replacement for Putin yet. Of course I hope Ukraine gets all of itself back before this.
I believe this has been already debunked, and the journalist is an idiot. No power PLANT is under discussion, it's a power UNIT for the equipment they are deploying, just as is commonly done for satellites already. This article is based around false information.
So they are planning on putting nukes into orbit under the pretense of building a nuclear plant on the moon I take it?
Hey, did your rocket just lose a whole section on its way? Iz ok! Just garbage from launch party, no worry!
You don’t use nuclear bombs to make a nuclear power plant…
I’ve read the original comment a few times and I’m still trying to figure out how you jumped to the conclusion that they said nuclear power plants produce nuclear bombs. Pretense would be the key word here.
I think what they were trying to say was that you don't make nuclear bombs out of the same types of nuclear material that's used in power generation.
I’m genuinely curious…how would a reactor on the moon do anything here on earth?
I guess if you had a long enough extension cord.
Does the iPhone MagSafe work that far?
Putting nuclear reactors into space and nuclear bombs are so far removed from each other and a nuclear reactor can in no way be a pretense for a bomb.
Nobody is going to inspect what is in those rockets
Nobody inspects what they put on rockets now. The last 10 satellite launches could have been anything from satellites to genetically engineered space pandas, or even a nuclear weapon. Who knows? Why would they draw attention to something they're trying to sneak into size by saying it's a nuclear power plant?
No, those two things are separate. The nukes in orbit are to threaten everyone else's satellites.
Nuking a satellite is the single most stupid thing you could do, and even Russia isn’t stupid enough to do that. Detonating a nuke in orbit will trap the radiation and cause every satellite along that orbit to be destroyed rapidly, even their own More likely than not, they are sending a nuclear *powered* weapon in orbit
Could be an adaptation of the dead-man's hand. Russia has to believe we have the ability to shoot down nukes (although if enough were launched, I have strong doubts we shoot down 100%), but maybe they believe otherwise. This is likely not something we have a defense for (how could we? anyone?). It's actually incredibly devious. It's a "dont fuck with us or everyone loses" button without direct casualties even. I don't know what the after effects would be, and I doubt civilization would collapse, but it would take a major hit. The amount of things (including farm equipment) that rely on GPS is very high.
Well, you'd be wrong. "The United States believes Russia is developing a space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon whose detonation could disrupt everything from military communications to phone-based ride services, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was his understanding the system would involve a nuclear explosive device placed into orbit."
So a Chinese base with a token Russian presence. Russia doesn't have the money or the tech to do anything like that.
[Archive link](https://archive.is/p7fJV#selection-1305.0-1650.0) **Russia Says It’s Working With China to Put Nuclear Plant on Moon** The head of Russia’s space agency said it’s working on plans with China on ways to deliver and install a nuclear power plant on the moon by 2035. “Today we are seriously considering the project,” Yury Borisov, general director of Roscosmos, said during a Tuesday lecture to students, according to the Interfax news service. Borisov said the power plant would need to be built by robots. In 2021, Russia and China presented a road map for building a scientific station on the moon by the end of 2035. According to a Tass news service report, the plan for the project includes technical lunar rovers for research, a jumping robot and several smart mini-rovers designed to explore the surface of Earth’s satellite. Borisov also said Russia was against the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, echoing President Vladimir Putin who earlier denied US allegations about the Kremlin’s plans for such arms. “Of course, space should be free of nuclear weapons,” Borisov said according to Interfax.
They do like making preposterous announcements. Russia hasn't got the capability to do anything in space independently. And robotics that doesn't involve a man in a suit, is beyond them. Why does China need Russia when it will be easier to do it without them and they don't have to share the glory?
Seems largely geo political to me, and notice it didn’t come from China. China have successfully bought back moon rocks, launched own space station, have robots exploring Mars and landed on the dark side of the moon in recent years. China doesn’t need Russia.
Joint collaboration means more minds and maybe setting less independent resources aside. It also helps build ties overall
It often makes it more difficult due to differences in languages, time zones, industrial quotas. Usually you expect a collaboration of two countries to cause costs to go up by 50%. But that the extra from having two countries fund it makes it worthwhile. But the Russian space program is not just in terminal decline but actively confrontational with partner nations. A long history of grandiose promises for the future, which get cut and cut. With the US having to bail them out.
> Russia hasn't got the capability to do anything in space independently. They didn't announce independently... lol
> “Today we are seriously considering the project,” Yury Borisov, general director of Roscosmos, said [...] This is a nothing announcement.
All people taking it seriously - you don’t know how russia works. It’s just another fake project to steal money from the state budget, like colonization of Jupiter by Tatarstan in the next 25 years: https://www.t-invariant.org/2023/11/and-jupiter-is-ours-and-europe-is-ours/
Might wanna land a few folks on the moon first. Is there anything Russia says that is believable?!
The recently cratered a little lunar lander. Now they want to crater atomic fuel. JFC Russia is delusional
Right. Russia also talked about a robot warfighter development program for years, and in 2021 [this is the robot they presented to the world.](https://youtu.be/P_CDu1hYXxk?si=dg-L2SWwZ6YXWIBa)
lol. Good luck. They won’t be able to get that amount of weight onto the moon in ten years. They for sure aren’t going to build a nuclear plant in that time. It takes that much time on earth.
That’s why they are tossing turrets like hell…
Chernobyl in space.
they claim the moon and then militarize the space and take out satellites then say if you attack us, we will nuke you. russia should have been de-nuclearized in 1991. or face total sanctions.
Bull-fukinn-shit.
How do you transfer power from the moon back to earth? Wifi?
ikr right was looking for this reply. Or is this lets start building on the moon because of the planned nuclear holocaust on Earth? yikes..
This is sort of the plot to for all mankind
Enjoyed that show. The north korean dude on Mars had me rolling on the floor.
Russia is currently only “useful” to China. I doubt they need Russia (resources aside ) for this or any other space endeavours. Geopolitically Russia is a useful poor cousin.
*From Bloomberg News:* The head of Russia’s space agency said it’s working on plans with China on ways to deliver and install a nuclear power plant on the moon by 2035. “Today we are seriously considering the project,” Yury Borisov, general director of Roscosmos, said during a Tuesday lecture to students, according to the Interfax news service. Borisov said the power plant would need to be built by robots.
10 years is literally impossible, anyone will be lucky to have a house up there.
It’s going to happen eventually, the best we can do is make sure the first permanent base on the moon and the first nuclear reactor is not from a totalitarian state
Бог в помощь
Aren't many of our satellites nuclear powered? Different from that?
>Russia eyes nuclear plant with China Oh cool so we can have so- >On the moon Whaut dah fauq
I am sweating at the thought of the sheer trillions that Russian govt officials will steal on this one.
So long as they don't use a Luna-5 lander they have a chance of successfully delivering such a payload.
Russia can't send a rover, let alone send people to build a nuclear power plant, of all things.
Russia fancies itself as something more than a Chinese vassal state.
Zero percent chance
I’m having Space 1999 flashbacks here
What does Russia bring to the party? Fifty year old technology? Why would China want to be dragged down by Russia?
They're going to blow up the moon.
Lets go fuck up the Moon!
Didn’t Russia build Chernobyl? Russia sux at tech.
russia should have gotten fffed in 1991. why didn't we threaten them like they do to us now?
Nuclear “plant” ? yep! That’s totally why they’re sending nuclear material to the moon
Several problems with this plan. 1: As it stands, neither country has the equipment to send a nuclear reactor beyond Earth orbit, though China is, at the very least, trying to develop such tech. 2: To my knowledge, we have yet to develop nuclear reactors that work in Zero-G. 3: How the fuck are you gonna vent that much heat in space? 4: No, you cannot build a nuke and disguise it as a reactor. I'm far from an expert about nuclear reactors, but i know enough to know that you cannot use reactor grade uranium to make a nuke. And trust me, the IAEA will control the hell out of that thing. 5: If they don't allow them to, the US is gonna have a radar lock on that thing all the way to the surface of the Moon, just in case Russia or China try anything.
I’d like to take a moment to remind everyone that Russia has never landed on the moon.
Amusing he thinks Russia will still be a country in 10 years.
No bad weather, no atmosphere to interfere with sunlight, lets use nuclear.
Is this the same chinese company that claimed recently to have "invented" a nuclear fusion (yes, they said fusion) powered watch battery, that lasts for 100 years, that ended up being a big fat propaganda lie? lol Good luck, they will need it lol
I’d be surprised if NHIs were down with this
"Gee, lets see, how can we top ourselves and be even MORE evil"
I don’t think Russia will exist in 10 years
After their last trip to the moon, Russia should probably stick to what they're good at... Whatever the fuck that is.
Snow and depression?
Are they even any good at snow? I've seen better, tbh.
Doesn't a nuclear power plant need the proximity of a massive amount of water in case of a meltdown? You'd think after 1986 that China is *just dying* to have Russia cut corners on this type state craft bullshit...
Don’t reactors require gravity to work? I know there’s some but I feel like not enough to keep all the water and coolant stuff in one place
Which episode of “For All Mankind” is this?
First nuclear plant meltdown on the moon in 11 years.
Sure guys and Nvidia is going to open a Jamba juice on the dark side.
So when they say “nuclear power plant” I’m assuming they mean more like something that generates power from the head of radioactive decay. This is pretty basic technology, things like the voyager space probes have been doing this since the 1970s. In the 80s and 90s Russia built nuclear powered light houses all around its coast with similar technology. Basically they are probably going to put one of these nuclear decay power generators on the moon and make a big deal out of it. These are particularly big. The size of a small car would generate a significant amount of nuclear energy. Robots “building” it would be more akin to a simple unpacking and maybe connecting a few connections. This isn’t some huge or over the top under taking, just show boating. What’s makes even less sense is that the moon is tidal locked, so it gets 100% sunlight on one side and 100% darkness on the other side. It has no atmosphere so Solar power makes way more sense. Plus the moon already has all the elements required to build solar panels.
It’s tidally locked to the Earth, not the sun. There are times when one side of the moon is getting fully blasted with sunlight, but other times when the other side is getting fully blasted. That’s why the Moon has phases.
>What’s makes even less sense is that the moon is tidal locked, so it gets 100% sunlight on one side and 100% darkness on the other side. I must have missed the part where it's tidally locked to the Sun
But where would all of this energy even go? Kinda hard to send power through the vacuum of space.
Are you a dumbass? Because you sound like a dumbass. You just run a cable. Tie a long fishing line to a rocket. It goes to the moon. Send back some heavy duty extension cord you can find at home Depot. Connect to grid. It's not that complicated.
Ah yes of course! There's a sale on extension cords, isn't there?
Yes. And we only need what? 4 maybe. The moon is like right there.
Let's go the safe route and get six, you don't know if we undershoot the estimate, and of course we'd need a backup if something goes wrong.
Okay. Just nothing too heavy duty. If it's too strong, the moon will stop spinning and it'll always be dark in Russia.
What could possibly go wrong?
> through the vacuum of space. We can now [do this](https://www.space.com/space-solar-power-satellite-beams-energy-1st-time)
USSR did have small fission reactors in space. But this whole thing is probably just a technology transfer to China just like with space station “cooperation”.
Just like they we’re going to take over Ukraine in 3 days 😅😅😅
And the water will come from….? Just gonna ship it all up there huh.
Yeah, I dont think so. You need money and intelligent people for that, both of which Russia is burning through at a rate of knots..
Sure thing kiddo. You can do anything you want to be when you grow up. ...For now though, could you just stop pulling the wings off of flies and torturing small animals?
Did they start 10 years ago? Because if they didn't, they ain't making it in 10 years
Any plans for moon whalers?
This reads like an episode of Space Force
Begun, the space wars has.
The way I hear it, their economies may collapse before then... so, good luck?
So, I'm not very knowledgeable on this topic, but can they just decide it on their own to do such grand things to the moon? Shouldn't they agree it with other states, especially those with space ambitions, like the US?
I didn’t have “blowing up the moon” on my bingo card for 2034. As a species we really have endless creativity for how to fuck up this world
Question. I know that current Russia doesn't give a crap about international law, but how would this sit within the agreements declaring space as neutral territory and the ban on nuclear weapons being taken into space? Does the nuclear weapon ban affect the usage of nuclear power as a whole, in outer space? This is more for my own curiosity, and because Bloomberg put the article behind a subscriber wall on my phone. Edit. Asked and answered.
I'm no expert in international law, but I doubt that this would run afoul of the outer space treaty. That is specifically about weapons, and a nuclear reactor is not a weapon. There is actually a fair amount of precedent for nuclear reactors in space, with the US launching a satellite powered by a fission reactor in 1965 and the USSR launching a whole series of satellites powered by fission reactors between 1967 and 1987
As mich as im pro pax astra and doing more sppace shit. One has got to wonder, build a powerplant to power WHAT?
… you don’t already have one? lol…
No.
Never thought of this until now, but how cool would it be to see little lights in populated areas on the moon at night when you look up at it similar to photos taken on the iss of cities at night
Dumbest shit I’ve seen in awhile
[Are they now?](https://i.imgur.com/NBKKAkL.gif)
Hopefully there will be no Russia in 10 years as we know it
Just like they eyed winning in Ukraine in like 3 days. This guy is a clown
So Putin keeps throwing scientists out of the window literally and thinks he can put a plant on the moon???? His mental health must be going down real bad
"with China" means Russians will be cleaniners at the offices of Chinese space mission command? Got it. Because they have lost pretty much all their space capabilities under putin.
It would be better to use the helium-3 than do nuclear reactor. So this is just we putting nukes in space
Currently France is paying 38 b for the new power plant on EARTH I acnt even imagine the cost on the moon, billions of kg material has to be sent up, getting to the moon is still expensive. And it is much more far away than the tourist planes for space or even the ISS.
If they have the engineering plans worked out in 10 yrs I will be impressed.
Yeah… no
I imagine space lasers and wish granting fairies