A US Senate committee has directed NASA to establish a permanent Moon base as soon as practicable, with a White House executive order targeting initial elements by 2030. The base would be located at the lunar south pole near Shackleton Crater or Mons Mouton, leveraging near-constant solar illumination and access to water-ice deposits in permanently shadowed regions. Equatorial lava tubes are also considered for their stable temperatures. Power would come from solar panels supplemented by 40-kilowatt nuclear fission reactors developed with the Department of Energy. Construction would proceed in stages: robotic site preparation, modular inflatable habitats, and eventually sintered regolith structures. Key challenges include funding pressures on NASA's flat budget, governance conflicts between the Artemis Accords and the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, and competition with China and Russia's planned International Lunar Research Station.