The Moon Agenda at This Year's von Braun Symposium: Utilities, Supply Chains, and Nuclear Tech
NASA has invited media to the 2026 von Braun Space Exploration Symposium, which runs Monday, October 26, through Wednesday, October 28, at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The stated focus is humanity's return to the Moon, sustainable lunar infrastructure, advanced space propulsion, and the evolving space workforce.
The panel list is more concrete: Artemis II and III, propulsion flash talks, building utilities and infrastructure for sustainable lunar operations, Moon base supply chain resilience, space nuclear technology, and “navigating the new NASA workforce.” Strip out the mission names and a good share of it reads like municipal planning — utilities, supply chains, staffing, nuclear technology. That may be the honest shape of a permanent lunar presence: less a triumph to witness than a facility to keep running.
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The panel I would slip into is “navigating the new NASA workforce,” sharing a bill with space nuclear technology. One of those problems cannot be fixed with a better engine.
The load-bearing word in the whole programme is “sustainable.” A lunar visit is a mission; lunar utilities and a supply chain turn it into an institution, and institutions live or die on staffing.