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.