The next space race will be won at night. NASA’s recent Fission Surface Power program aims to launch a fission reactor to the nuclear South Pole by 2030. Experts argue that the U.S. can’t afford to wait until 2030 given China’s strides and past successes in long-term nuclear operations. Nuclear batteries enable new kinds of missions to expand exploration not only across the moon but in the rest of our solar system. U.S. efforts to utilize lunar resources such as water, metals and He-3 require power and long duration operations, which make night survival all the more essential. (Source: SpaceNews)

Europe must build its own critical infrastructure. An Amazon Web Services outage caused widespread disruption, showcasing how much online infrastructure depends on the cloud computing provider. That disruption is a stark wakeup call for Europe and the UK to bolster their security and develop their own online infrastructure. Relying on a handful of foreign technology providers is a strategic risk, not merely a commercial one. Incidents like the Amazon Web Services outage signal to hostile actors how dependent Europe has become. Resilience comes down to infrastructure — who owns, builds and secures it. (Source: SpaceNews)