America and China race to place nuclear reactors on the Moon as space law struggles with territorial reality
Technical requirements for lunar power are becoming the new front in space competition, with infrastructure potentially trumping international treaties
When Sean Duffy issued his directive in July, the acting NASA administrator was remarkably candid about what's really at stake in America's accelerated lunar nuclear programme. The first country to place a reactor on the Moon "could potentially declare a keep-out zone which would significantly inhibit the United States from establishing a planned Artemis presence if not there first," his memo warned. Strip away the diplomatic language, and Duffy was acknowledging a blunt reality: space exploration has become about territorial advantage disguised as technical necessity.
This represents a shift in how nations compete beyond Earth. The original space race was about symbolic achievements—flags and footprints, as NASA's Michelle Hanlon puts it. Today's competition centers on infrastructure that creates lasting strategic advantage. Nuclear reactors aren't just power sources; they're potential gatekeepers to the Moon's most valuable resources.
Why nuclear power controls lunar territory
The physics of lunar operation create genuine technical imperatives that become strategic chokepoints. Lunar nights last 14 Earth days, and in the permanently shadowed regions where water ice accumulates, sunlight never reaches the surface at all. Solar panels become essentially useless in these areas, yet these same regions contain the Moon's most valuable resource.
An estimated 600 billion kilograms of water ice lies trapped in lunar polar craters—enough to fill 240,000 Olympic swimming pools. This ice can be processed into drinking water, breathing oxygen, and hydrogen for rocket fuel, making it essential for sustained lunar operations and eventual Mars missions. The concentration of this resource in specific locations creates natural chokepoints unlike terrestrial resource competition.
A nuclear reactor changes everything. Operating continuously for a decade or more, it can power habitats, rovers, mining equipment and life-support systems regardless of sunlight availability. America's new programme targets 100 kilowatts of continuous power—enough to support substantial mining operations and permanent bases. China and Russia's joint reactor, planned for deployment between 2033 and 2035, would power their International Lunar Research Station with similar capabilities.
The infrastructure advantage in permanently shadowed regions
The geography of lunar resources makes first-mover advantages particularly powerful. Unlike Earth, where similar resources might be found across multiple continents, lunar water ice exists primarily in specific permanently shadowed craters at the poles. These regions are extremely difficult to access and operate within, requiring precisely the type of continuous, reliable power that nuclear reactors provide.
Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar exploration programme, explicitly acknowledges this reality. "An important question for the International Lunar Research Station is power supply," he told international partners in April 2025, highlighting Russia's "competitive advantage in space-based nuclear technology." The Chinese programme's timeline, supported by 17 countries including Egypt, Pakistan, Venezuela and South Africa, represents a coordinated effort to establish infrastructure in these crucial areas.
The technical requirements create a situation where controlling power generation effectively means controlling resource access. A nation operating a nuclear reactor near valuable ice deposits doesn't just power its own operations—it potentially excludes others from meaningful activity in the same region.
How Antarctica shows infrastructure becomes influence
The Antarctic Treaty system provides a telling precedent for how infrastructure creates lasting territorial advantage despite explicit prohibitions on sovereignty claims. Seven nations claimed Antarctic territory before the 1959 treaty, then agreed to "freeze" these claims whilst building research stations. Today, those nations with the most extensive infrastructure effectively control access to the most valuable Antarctic resources and research sites.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty follows a similar pattern, prohibiting territorial claims whilst requiring nations to show "due regard" for others' installations. This seemingly innocuous phrase grants reactor operators significant power over nearby activities. Installation visits must be preceded by "prior consultations," effectively giving infrastructure operators veto power over competitors' plans.
Michelle Hanlon, the space lawyer, notes this creates a practical reality: "While visits by other countries are encouraged as a transparency measure, they must be preceded by prior consultations. Effectively, this grants operators a degree of control over who can enter and when." Building infrastructure isn't staking a territorial claim, but it functionally shapes where and how others can operate.
Racing to claim the ultimate high ground
The acceleration of both programmes reveals how seriously nations take this dynamic. America's timeline has compressed dramatically under competitive pressure. NASA's original Fission Surface Power project aimed for "early 2030s" deployment with a 40-kilowatt reactor. Duffy's directive demands a 100-kilowatt system operational by 2030—matching the China-Russia timeline whilst more than doubling the power output.
This timeline compression comes despite significant technical challenges. Both programmes require developing reactors that can deploy autonomously, resist lunar dust, maintain thermal equilibrium in extreme temperature variations, and operate independently for at least a decade. If something goes wrong, there's no repair mission. A failed reactor becomes a source of nuclear contamination in precisely the areas where water ice might be extracted.
China's Chang'e-8 mission in 2028 will test construction technologies and energy systems to support their lunar base. Meanwhile, Russia is developing a "nuclear space tugboat"—a massive cargo spacecraft powered by a reactor and high-output turbines to transport reactor components to the Moon. The scale of these preparations suggests both sides understand what's genuinely at stake.
What 'due regard' really means in practice
The legal framework creates abundant opportunity for infrastructure-based territorial control without explicit sovereignty claims. The Outer Space Treaty's requirement for "due regard" sounds like diplomatic politeness, but it has practical teeth. Nations must demonstrate they're not interfering with others' legitimate activities, but reactor operators can argue that almost any nearby activity poses risks to nuclear operations.
Safety zones around nuclear installations would be entirely reasonable—and entirely effective at excluding competitors from valuable resource areas. A properly placed reactor could control access to multiple ice-rich craters whilst claiming legitimate safety concerns about outside activities.
Erika Nesvold, author of "Off-Earth: Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space," warns that "it remains to be seen whether our system of international treaties and national laws will guide us towards cooperation, competition, or conflict over limited resources like ice on the Moon." The early evidence suggests infrastructure placement will determine the answer.
The new space race's territorial logic
This competition differs fundamentally from the 1960s space race because it's not primarily about national prestige but about future economic activity in space. Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist at the University of Central Florida, explains that lunar water "will change how we do everything in space" because it provides the raw materials for rocket propellant manufacturing beyond Earth.
The implications extend far beyond the Moon. Whoever controls lunar resources gains tremendous advantages for Mars missions, asteroid mining, and deep space exploration. Infrastructure placement in the 2030s could determine space resource access for decades to come.
Current international law wasn't designed for this reality. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty emerged when lunar operations seemed like distant science fiction. Today's technical capabilities create situations the treaty never anticipated, where infrastructure necessity provides legitimate justification for territorial control.
When technical necessity meets territorial advantage
The genuine technical requirements for lunar nuclear power create a perfect storm for territorial competition. Nations can pursue entirely legitimate safety and operational objectives whilst achieving strategic territorial goals. Infrastructure becomes influence not through legal loopholes but through operational necessity.
Sean Duffy's warning about "keep-out zones" acknowledges this reality with unusual directness. His directive explicitly frames reactor deployment as essential for preventing "potential geopolitical exclusion zones on the Moon." The competition isn't really about nuclear technology—it's about ensuring American access to space resources as other nations build infrastructure that could exclude competitors.
The race to place nuclear reactors on the Moon represents something unprecedented: territorial competition conducted through technical necessity rather than explicit claims. The winning nation won't claim sovereignty over lunar territory, but they won't need to. Infrastructure, it appears, trumps international law when survival depends on reliable power in permanently shadowed regions.
As both programmes accelerate towards their 2030s deployment targets, the Moon is becoming the testing ground for whether international space law can constrain territorial ambitions when technical requirements provide legitimate justification for strategic positioning. Early evidence suggests that whoever builds first, builds best—and longest.