Musk puts Mars on ice
Over the weekend, Elon Musk, the centibillionaire CEO of SpaceX, announced a sudden revision to his long-stated dream of building a human city on Mars.
Instead of prioritizing the Red Planet, he said that SpaceX — which is now competing with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin over a NASA mission to return astronauts to the Moon — would focus on building a lunar “city.”
“For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years,” he wrote.
The comments were at odds with a statement Musk made just over a year ago, when he described lunar missions as “a distraction” that would take resources away from building “a self-sustaining colony on Mars.”
“We’re going straight to Mars,” he said in a January 2025 post on X.
SpaceX was founded in 2002 out of Musk’s singular obsession with colonizing Mars during his lifetime. But over the years, Musk has botched numerous predictions about when exactly SpaceX would complete a Martian landing. He said in 2016 that SpaceX would conduct its inaugural uncrewed landing on Mars by 2022. He also said at the time that SpaceX would ferry a “meaningful number of people” to the planet by 2024.
Those dates have since come and gone without SpaceX ever attempting a Martian mission. Still, in Musk’s imagination, SpaceX is perpetually several years away from delivering humans to Mars.
In 2021, for instance, he changed that date to 2026. The following year, Musk revised it to 2029. And on Sunday, when Musk announced his new focus on developing a lunar city, he said SpaceX would build “a Mars city” by 2031 or 2033. “But the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster,” he added.
Musk’s most recent predictions are roughly in line with NASA’s planned landing of the first astronauts on Mars, which the agency hopes to achieve at an unspecified point in the 2030s. NASA’s goal of completing a crewed mission, however, is decidedly less complicated than Musk’s fantasy of constructing a self-sustaining Martian city with one million residents.
Why the Moon over Mars?
Musk’s sudden emphasis on the Moon suggests he could be coming to terms with SpaceX’s limitations as a private company. Without government funding and contracts, SpaceX has little hope of ever reaching Mars. And right now, federal money is focused on the Moon.
In December, Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for Americans to “return to the Moon by 2028” and begin the construction of a U.S. “permanent lunar outpost by 2030.”
The directive was framed as an effort to beat China and return humans to the Moon before Beijing. “At a time when our adversaries are challenging American space leadership, President Trump is securing and defending vital American interests in, from, and to space,” the order read.
Trump has also pressed NASA to complete its Artemis III mission by 2028 — that way, American astronauts can return to the lunar surface before he leaves the White House. NASA plans to use SpaceX’s lagging Starship Human Landing System (HLS) for that mission.
Musk was previously at odds with Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who briefly led NASA as interim administrator last year. Citing project delays, Duffy threatened to revoke NASA’s $3 billion contract with SpaceX to build the lunar lander for Artemis III.
Duffy also warned in October that SpaceX could be pushed aside in favor of Blue Origin, the rocket and space exploration company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. “We’re in a race against China,” said Duffy. “So, I’m going to open up the contract. I’m going to let other space companies compete with SpaceX.”
But Duffy is no longer in charge of NASA. Fintech billionaire Jared Isaacman, a Musk ally and SpaceX customer, was appointed as administrator in December. Since then, Musk has grown increasingly close to the Trump administration, rekindling his relationship with the president that had deteriorated following their bitter feud last June.
Despite Isaacman’s appointment, Blue Origin is still in contention for the Artemis III mission, placing additional pressure on SpaceX to prove that it can hold up its end of Trump’s lunar objectives.
The Blue Origin threat
Blue Origin has also shifted its focus, recently announcing that it would pause space tourism to focus its efforts on the Moon. “The decision reflects Blue Origin’s commitment to the nation’s goal of returning to the moon and establishing a permanent, sustained lunar presence,” the company said.
Blue Origin has its own contract with NASA to land astronauts on the moon as part of the Artemis V mission, which is scheduled for 2030, but it’s now gunning for additional contracts.
On Sunday, Bezos appeared to respond to Musk’s newfound lunar emphasis. He shared a cryptic post on X that many interpreted as a tortoise-and-hare metaphor, with the slow-moving Blue Origin looking to overtake SpaceX.
Over the last year, Blue Origin has completed a launch of its New Glenn rocket, successfully recovered its booster, and is developing a lunar lander that would not be constrained by the orbital refueling requirements that have hampered SpaceX’s Starship HLS.
SpaceX has yet to complete a test of Starship’s complex in-orbit refueling process, which it will have to do several times during a single mission shuttling astronauts to the Moon. Starship continues to struggle with non-crewed launch missions, with its trial program plagued by repeated failures and explosions. SpaceX plans to begin testing a new Starship variant in March.
While SpaceX’s launch record remains far more prolific than that of Blue Origin, the Musk-led company is contending with new distractions. Earlier this month, Musk merged SpaceX with xAI, his controversial, cash-draining artificial intelligence company, to build a sprawling constellation of solar-powered “orbital data centers.”
“Five years from now, my prediction is we will launch and be operating every year more AI in space than the cumulative total on Earth,” Musk wrote last week. The xAI acquisition came as SpaceX targets a $1.5 trillion valuation for its planned initial public offering in June.
In a meeting with xAI employees on Tuesday, Musk said he planned to build a factory on the moon to produce AI satellites — along with a giant catapult to launch them into space.
The amount of money all of this space shit will cost could fund all the initiatives Musk thinks are important on earth - oh wait are there any? He doesn't want to improve health worldwide or eradicate diseases. He doesn't care about science that is realistic, manageable, and applicable. He simply doesn't care about saving the fragile planet we are on. He sucks money from our government to enrich himself. Period. And to build spaceships that are fulfilling some childhood dream, not of going into space, but of having everyone, if not love him, admire his talent and brains. What talent? Brain for what? (The dead carcass of) Epstein had the same need to be admired by important people.
This is the only thing you need to know: Musk is a Nazi. Not a pretend cos play Nazi, but a real live card carrying Nazi. He is also a greedy little pig = Nazi pig.
What's next, Musk scaling back proposing to build a human city on the top of Mt. Everest?
Data centers in space? $1.5 trillion SpaceX valuation with the xAI albatross around its neck? He's so pathetic and full of shit. Why does anyone give any credence to his cockamamie ideas?