U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is expected to announce a sped-up timeline this week to build a nuclear reactor on the moon.<\/p>\n
This will be his first major action since President Donald Trump named him interim NASA administrator in June<\/a>.<\/p>\n Documents obtained by POLITICO <\/a>show that Duffy\u2019s directive establishes \u201ca more definitive timeline\u201d for the plan, which has been floated by NASA officials previously.<\/p>\n Some have expressed concerns with additional spending just as the agency faces a massive budget cut<\/a>, but Scientific American writer Lee Billings says it could be a \u201cstrategic lunar land grab.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOwnership of otherworldly territory is prohibited, according to the United Nations Outer Space Treaty, but the treaty also obliges spacefaring powers to exercise \u2018due regard\u2019 in their activities, meaning that they should not encroach on or interfere with sensitive infrastructure built by others,\u201d Billings writes<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cA nuclear reactor placed on the lunar surface, therefore, could allow the declaration of what Duffy\u2019s directive calls a \u2018keep-out zone.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n This would foil what Billings calls a \u201cburgeoning partnership\u201d between China and Russia to build a nuclear-powered outpost near the moon\u2019s south pole by the mid-2030s.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is about winning the second space race,\u201d an anonymous NASA senior official told POLITICO this week ahead of the plan\u2019s release.<\/p>\n Duffy\u2019s proposal also aims to speed up replacement of the International Space Station, which could help the U.S. reach the moon and Mars before China, according to NASA officials.<\/p>\n A former congressman and prosecutor, Duffy first gained fame by appearing on several MTV reality television programs, including 1997\u2019s The Real World: Boston; Road Rules: All Stars (1998); and Real World\/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons (2002). He has also worked as a political commentator for CNN and for Fox News.<\/p>\n Duffy served in the U.S. House as Republican representative for Wisconsin\u2019s 7th Congressional District from 2011 to 2019. Before Congress, he was district attorney in rural Ashland County, Wis., from 2002-2010.<\/p>\n In Congress, Duffy sat on the House financial services committee \u2013 where he was chairman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee — and on the House budget committee.<\/p>\n An AL.com review of Duffy\u2019s record in Congress<\/a> shows he did not sponsor or cosponsor a single bill directly related to NASA or space policy.<\/p>\n Duffy has been noted as a \u201cstark contrast\u201d to Trump\u2019s first pick to head NASA, Jared Isaacman.<\/p>\n Isaacman, founder and CEO of the credit card payment processing company Shift4 Payments, was a close ally of Elon Musk, having twice purchased flights into space aboard the latter\u2019s SpaceX rockets. <\/p>\n Trump withdrew Isaacman\u2019s nomination shortly after the president had a public falling out<\/a> with Musk as well as revelations that Isaacman had previously donated to causes related to both Democrats and Republicans<\/a>.<\/p>\n Administration spokeswoman Liz Huston previously told NBC News<\/a>, \u201cit\u2019s essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump\u2019s America First agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is expected to announce a sped-up timeline this week to build a nuclear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[13933,79,193,44967],"class_list":{"0":"post-61740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-alabama-news","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-space-race"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}