NASA Competition Could Help Power a Human Lunar Presence

NASA wants to return to the Moon, but they have a power problem. And their prize competition, the "Watts on the Moon Challenge," could help solve it.

If you’re not up-to-speed, NASA launched the Artemis Program to land the first woman and the next man on the moon by 2024. And it’s an exciting goal – the last Apollo mission was in 1972, and humans haven’t set foot on another celestial body since.

Even the name is significant – Artemis is based on the Greek goddess for the wilderness, chastity, and the Moon, and it foretells the first female lunar explorer.

There’s just one problem – power is a scarce commodity on the Moon’s inhospitable environment. Solar energy is abundant, but nights on the Moon can last 350 hours, and the extreme temperature changes make solar power a difficult proposition.

And for a sustained human presence on the Moon – eventually leading to a Mars mission – we need a renewable (and reliable) source of power.

That’s where the Watts on the Moon Challenge comes in.

The competition offers up to $5 million in total prizes for teams that offer energy management, distribution, and storage solutions, and like most NASA innovations, the tech could eventually trickle down to Earth and solve some our own energy challenges.

Crowdsourcing platform HeroX is managing the participants.

“We are again proud to partner with NASA to crowdsource ingenious solutions to interstellar problems,” said Christian Cotichini, CEO of HeroX. “This has exciting implications for space exploration, and it could also improve life down here on Earth, in terms of renewable energy use and storage.”  

You can view and enter the challenge here.