https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/21/nasa-taps-three-companies-to-design-nuclear-power-plants-for-the-moon/ > Nuclear fission may have to overcome a public perception hurdle here on Earth in order to get the funding and development it needs to advance sufficiently to help our with our de-carbonization efforts, but the mostly empty lunar surface sidesteps a lot of nuclear’s image problem. NASA announced on Tuesday that it’s contracting three suppliers to provide concept designs for nuclear fission energy systems designed for use on the Moon. > The winning bids for this award came from Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse and IX (a joint venture from Intuitive Machines and X-Energy). Each will be working with a few partners to develop their systems, which will be “initial concepts” only for the purposes of satisfying this particular contract, and each will receive roughly $5 million for their work, expected to take around 12 months.