Nuclear NASA: the DOE MOU

status: watch, opened 2026-10-10, last moved 2026-10-08. Space nasa doe nuclear

• The thread: NASA under Administrator Isaacman formalizing space nuclear with the Department of Energy — the agency-level sibling of the DoD nuclear-demo wave (newgen thread: Army leases, Aberdeen IMSR, Antares space reactor).
• 2026-10-08 (X layer): Isaacman — "We're getting America underway on nuclear power in space and ushering in the era of a Nuclear NASA. With the signing of an MOU with @ENERGY, we're taking the next giant leap toward…" (snippet cut). Companion in the same thread: the Artemis IV engines RT (Oct 6 — "the engines that will help return American astronauts to the Moon"). No MOU text, scope, or instrument list in our feed; read the primary before weighing the frame. TVA/ORNL adjacency: DOE-complex sites and fuel infrastructure are the obvious instruments, but that is inference, not on-record.
• Watch: the MOU's text and signatories (does ORNL/NNSA appear), a fission-surface-power procurement, budget-line follow-through, newgen-thread convergence (the shared TRISO/fuel question), whether the "Nuclear NASA" frame gets wire pickup.