Five African Nations May Join in Building Lunar Nuclear Power Station
July 1—Five African countries may join with Russia and China in building a nuclear reactor near the south pole of the Moon, Business Insider Africa reported June 25. The article names the five African nations: Senegal, Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Djibouti, although it adds that this has still to be fully confirmed.
The five nations would be participating in the building of the China-led International Lunar Research Station, near the Moon’s south pole. Chinese scientists Yuduo Shen and Wei Wang, from the Lunar Engineering and Space Engineering Center of the China National Space Agency, write: “The International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) represents a significant milestone in lunar exploration. It is a jointly implemented, scalable, and maintainable facility with functions like power supply, communication, and scientific research. The ILRS adheres to principles such as peaceful utilization and shared benefits. Its objectives cover technological leaps, scientific research on lunar geology, and resource utilization.” Construction on the ILRS will start some time about 2030. The ILRS will include research and astronomy observation stations, helium-3 mining operations, as well as places for human habitation. Many of the structures will be built by robotics, with some human participation.
On April 23, at a China National Space Agency forum in Shanghai, the nuclear component was added to power the ILRS’s operation. Wu Wiren, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, stated, “An important question for the ILRS is power supply, and in this, Russia has a natural advantage, when it comes to power plants, especially sending them into space, it leads the world, it is ahead of the United States,” reported Reuters April 23. China and Russia indicate that they intend to complete the lunar nuclear reactor by 2035.
China fully intends to internationalize the project, announcing at the same time that it will create the “555 Project,” inviting 50 countries, 500 international scientific research institutions, and 5,000 overseas researchers to join the ILRS.
Simultaneously, during the last week of April, the BRICS held a two-day discussion attended by representatives of the BRICS nations’ space agencies, to balance and upgrade the technical capacities of those space agencies. Of the five African nations reported to be highly considered for joining the China-Russia ILRS, three of them—Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Africa—are BRICS members.
The ILRS will open the doors to many nations, in a program that if successful, including its nuclear power component, will set the only real foundation for one of man’s next steps: the nuclear rocket-powered phases of Mars colonization.