Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy says it's time for the agency to focus on the moon and Mars, not the "smorgasbord of priorities," like climate science, the agency has been directing its resources.

According to new information on SkySafari 6 Pro, a program used to predict the placement of stars and planets, Thursday, Aug. 21, is the last chance for people to see the planetary parade, which includes the crescent moon.

"Our society is built on technologies that are highly susceptible to space weather," said NASA's Heliophysics Division Director Joseph Westlake in the release. "Just as we use meteorology to forecast Earth's weather, space weather forecasts predict the conditions and events in the space environment that can affect Earth and our technologies."

South Korea's K-RadCube satellite has arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of its launch toward the moon on the Artemis 2 mission next year.

In a bold, strategic move for the U.S., acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy announced plans on Aug. 5, 2025, to build a nuclear fission reactor for deployment on the lunar surface in 2030. Doing so would allow the United States to gain a foothold on the moon by the time China plans to land the first taikonaut,

Placing an atomic energy source on the lunar surface is “not science fiction,” experts say, but does pose technical challenges.

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy has directed the agency to fast-track plans to put a nuclear reactor on the moon.

As of Wednesday, Aug. 20, the moon phase is Waning Crescent, and it is 9% lit up to us on Earth, according to NASA's Daily Moon Observation.