“Edwin Lyman, director of Nuclear Power Safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit, said his organization is concerned the parameters of the design and timeline make the most likely reactors those that use highly enriched uranium, which can be made into weapons. Nations have generally been attempting to reduce the amount of enriched uranium being produced for that reason“

The enriched uranium for a handful of deep space reactors has pretty much a zero chance of being used in weaponry, especially once it’s been launched.

This seems like a trivial proliferation issue when you realize the US still has thousands of nuclear bombs and continues to make new nuclear weapons.

If you have the tools to produce enriched uranium for space applications, you can also use them to produce weapons, in secret.

The US Military already has those tools and already does produce weapons in secret.

What does that have to do with building high power to mass nuclear plants for space applications?

Referring to "one lab of the US Department of Energy" as "America" is pushing it a little bit. One of those is a whole continent.

On the other hand, the USA is not the only United States, so if you're not going to call it America because that isn't specific enough, then you shouldn't call it the US either...

Ahem!

TWO whole continents.

<grin>

> Nuclear startup NuScale’s modular reactor uses low-enriched uranium, for example, but couldn’t meet the requirements for the moon without some modification and further development.

The NuScale reactor has a shipping weight of 700 tons and requires an on-site concrete pool of cooling water. Sounds like a lot of modification to me.