- Elon Musk said SpaceX now prioritizes building a self-growing city on the Moon over Mars
- Moon missions can launch every 10 days, allowing faster development than Mars missions every 26 months
- Mars city plans are delayed, with work expected to start in 5 to 7 years according to Musk
Elon Musk announced that SpaceX is now prioritising the establishment of a "self-growing city" on the Moon over its long-held ambition to colonise Mars. The billionaire cited the need to "secure the future of civilisation" as the primary driver for this strategic shift, noting that the Moon offers a much faster and more practical route for rapid development than the Red Planet. In a tweet on X, Musk explained that while Mars missions are restricted by planetary alignments every 26 months, launches to the Moon can occur every 10 days.
"The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars. It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six-month trip time), whereas we can launch to the Moon every 10 days (two-day trip time). This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city," he wrote.
See the tweet here:
What about Mars?
The Mars ambition has not been shelved but has been put on a slower track. In the same tweet, Musk estimated that work on a Mars city will now likely begin in 5 to 7 years.
"That said, SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization, and the Moon is faster," he clarified.
The Lunar City
The proposed "self-growing" lunar city will reportedly leverage artificial intelligence from Musk's recently acquired xAI to develop space-based data centres and autonomous robotic systems that can build infrastructure with minimal human intervention.
This shift aligns SpaceX more closely with current US space policy under President Donald Trump, which prioritises returning Americans to the Moon by 2028 via NASA's Artemis Program. Notably, no human has walked on the lunar surface since the final US Apollo mission in 1972. Last year, on December 18, Trump signed an executive order, "Ensuring American Space Superiority."
"The Order calls for Americans' return to the Moon by 2028 and the establishment of initial elements of a permanent lunar outpost by 2030. The order directs the deployment of nuclear reactors on the Moon and in orbit, including a lunar surface reactor ready for launch by 2030," a fact sheet by the White House read.
Americans are currently scheduled to return to the Moon's surface in mid-2027 on the Artemis 3 mission, but the timeline has been repeatedly pushed back. Industry experts say it will probably be delayed again because the lunar lander in development at SpaceX is not ready.
