SpaceX founder Elon Musk recently announced that his company, founded on the idea of creating the first city on Mars, was focusing on the Moon instead.
Host | Matthew S Williams
For more podcast Stories from Space with Matthew S Williams, visit: https://itspmagazine.com/stories-from-space-podcast
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SpaceX founder Elon Musk recently announced that his company, founded on the idea of creating the first city on Mars, was focusing on the Moon instead. This announcement has left many wondering why he has made such a massive pivot. There are also questions as to why he's chosen to do this now.
SpaceX, Mars, Moon, NASA, Musk, Bezos, Blue Origin, Artemis, xAI, Starlink, Starship, HLS, astronauts, space, Blue Moon, New Glenn, lunar lander, lunar surface, Moon base
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Resources
Fraser Cain - Soundbites
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqCx81ky8Ts
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For more podcast Stories from Space with Matthew S Williams, visit: https://itspmagazine.com/stories-from-space-podcast
Moon to Mars
[00:00:00] The authors acknowledged that this podcast was recorded on the
traditional unseated lands of the Lekwungen Peoples. Good afternoon and
welcome back to another episode of Stories From Space. I'm your host, Matt
Williams, and today's topic, the recent controversy in questions surrounding the
big pivot by Elon.
The man who created SpaceX back in 2001 with the sole purpose of
engineering rockets and reducing launch costs so that humanity could jumpstart
the exploration of Mars, which he saw as something that was inevitable but had
been a dream deferred. And for the past 25 years, he's been working constantly
towards that goal, incrementally building up a rocket fleet, reducing the cost of
launches through reusable rockets and ride shares.
And ultimately it all came down to the development of the Star ship, the vehicle
that was [00:01:00] gonna replace all of the other Falcon Rockets, and which
Elon Musk envisioned launching regularly from Earth, a thousand at a time. He
once said. That would be able to carry a hundred tons of cargo or a hundred
passengers each, and that with this iteration, with all this equipment and
supplies and people being sent to Mars, you would have the ability to build a
self-sustaining city of 80,000 people.
So many people are now wondering why this sudden pivot as he announced on
February 8th on X coinciding with the Super Bowl. 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 plus
years.
The mission of SpaceX remains the same, extend consciousness and life as we
know it to the stars. He included as a caveat at the end, that SpaceX will also
[00:02:00] strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about five to seven
years. But the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the
moon is faster.
And as already mentioned, this represents a huge departure for Elon Musk. And
he cited several very practical reasons as to why SpaceX should be focusing its
efforts on building a lunar base first. But the bigger question remains, why
now? What exactly conspired to convince Elon to stop saying that the moon
was a distraction?And Mars was the real goal to start focusing on a moon to Mars mission
architecture, which is precisely what NASA has been doing for the past two
decades. And in terms of him saying the moon was a distraction, these were
remarks that he made as recently as last year. So what's changed in the
meantime?
Well, quite a few things, but [00:03:00] first, it bears mentioning all the
practical reasons for this switch and why it is that NASA, among other space
agencies had been looking to the moon as the first step on a journey to Mars.
Rather than focusing on Mars direct plans, and as we explored in a previous
episode, the idea of a Mars direct admission architecture, this is something that
Robert, the founder of the Mars Society, an astronomical engineer and a
longtime advocate for the exploration of Mars, this was something that he
pitched to NASA back in the late 1990s, and it's something he's been advocating
for ever since.
In fact, years ago when I had a chance of engaging him in a Q and a panel
discussion, I asked what specifically it was about the Moon to Mars mission
architecture that he thought was impractical or infeasible, and he specifically
mentioned orbital refueling. Which speaks [00:04:00] to what Elon Musk is
planning to do with his fleeter rockets.
Orbital refueling is not only a key part of his proposed architecture for getting
de Mars, but also for the Artemis program with the Starship Human Landing
System, which as we also explored in episode, would require up.
So it could break from orbit and actually make it to the motor. In contrast,
Zubrin has gone on record as saying that we could send missions directly to
Mars by ensuring that these supplies will send advance and that this could be
done with the space launch system or the Constellation programs, uh, original
workup for the Aries one and five Rocket, the Aries five being the basis for the
space launch system.
Nevertheless, NASA has been on the same page for all that time [00:05:00]
since the Constellation Program back in 2005, 2006, and their architecture was,
we head back to the moon first. We build infrastructure there that would allow
us to send missions to Mars, and that the same infrastructure would allow for
more rapid resupply emissions sent from the moon rather directly from earth.
And also would allow for follow-up missions mounted on a semi-regular basis,
and that is precisely what the infrastructure that they have planned to build inorbit around the moon and on the lunar surface would be for as well, allowing
regular follow-up missions with a frequency of about one per year.
The reasons for doing things this way. It comes down to logistics and timing,
plain and simple. And Musk, of course mentioned all of these in his post, but to
go into them in a bit more detail, for one, launch, windows to Mars [00:06:00]
occur only about every 26 months. And this coincides with Mars being at
opposition in the night sky.
Which basically means that Mars and the Sun are on opposite sides of planet
Earth. They are opposed rather than being in conjunction. And at this point,
reaching Mars using conventional propulsion would take six to nine months.
Now that's based on robotic missions that have been sent there in the past,
sending crude vessels.
They would need to have a real high velocity rating in order to make it there in
that same amount of time in order to break free of earth absorbent and conduct a
trans Mars injection. And a key point that he mentioned there was iteration. It's
not just about getting there, it's about getting the spacecraft back, getting them
refueled so you can send more payloads, more people.
And between that launch window and the [00:07:00] distance, it's gonna take a
really long time to actually build up a base in a self-sustaining city there. So he
was absolutely right in saying that it's easier to do this on the moon. Not only
are launch windows a lot more accommodating, you can launch several times a
month rather than every 26 months.
And as the Apollo missions demonstrated, it takes only about three days to get
to the moon, which means that if anyone on the lunar surface there any bases,
any habitats, if they're in any kind of trouble. Things break down. They're
running outta food. They've got a limited supply of water and air. They can be
resupplied in a matter of days, and for spacecraft that are then returning to earth,
the turnaround time, getting to the moon landing, offloading, and possibly
taking on stuff to bring home, like resources.
The turnaround time would be about 10 days. [00:08:00] So that's pretty
attractive return on investments right there and far more attractive from a
buildup, an iteration point of view, right? With every flight you're able to add
more equipment, building materials, et cetera, onto the lunar surface, and you
can look forward to much more rapid timeline there for developing a self-
sustaining city.And as I mentioned, spacecraft returning from the moon. They could be hauling
back resources as part of a growing lunar economy. And in terms of what kinds
of resources, this has been explored in great depth for many decades. For one,
there's the prospect of mining helium three on the moon. And Helium three is
relatively abundant on the moon, at least compared to Earth because of the
constant solar, wind, bombardment of its surface.
And given that Helium three [00:09:00] is the ideal isotope for use in fusion
reactors, its extraction could fuel a emerging fusion economy. And of course
there's the extensive mineral wealth as scientists have known ever since the
Apollo astronauts brought back the moon rock samples. The earth and moon
have very similar compositions.
It's basically silicate crust and mantle over top of a metallic core, and also like
earth. Its surface has been bombarded by meteorites and asteroids since the very
beginning of the solar system. And so the surface itself is littered with trace
metals from all that bombardment. So yes, much like as we explored in the last
episode on asteroid mining, there is an abundance of iron and nickel as well as
precious metals and rare earth elements that could, in theory be extracted
[00:10:00] from the lunar crust in soil, and that these would help fuel a growing
space economy.
And help usher in an age of post scarcity. But of course that's the optimistic
appraisal and there are a number of very sticky legal issues that absolutely have
to be worked out before any of this can be done. Now there have been
statements made and international agreements signed, but there they're kind of
broaden their scope and a little general in their language.
So from a legal standpoint, yes. The details, which are always crucial, there's a
lot of work that still needs to be done on that. For example, you have the outer
Space Treaty of 1967 and the Moon Treaty or Moon agreement of 1979. And
this treaty, as I'm sure I've mentioned in previous episodes. It establishes that
the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in
the interest of all countries, [00:11:00] and shall be the province of all mankind.
And that is the original language in which the agreement was written. But of
course, it refers to all humanity. So to boil it down, it's basically stating that
space is for everyone. And when it comes to the moon and the question of
mining and harvesting resources and the rights of commercial entities, articles
two, six, and 11 really stand out.Article two establishes that outer space is not subject to national appropriation
by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation or by any other means.
In other words, no one has a right to claim any part of space, and that would
include the moon. Whereas Article Six establishes that the parties to the treaty
shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space.
And last Article 11 indicates that signatories must agree to inform the Secretary
General of the United [00:12:00] Nations as well as the public and the
international scientific community of the nature conduct location and results of
their activities in space. However, there were many people in the international
community who felt that the outer Space Treaty was a bit ambiguous when it
came to the issue of property rights on the moon, mainly because the treaty
spells out that no nation has the right to claim sovereignty of anything in space.
But it did not specifically mention private corporations. So the Moon Treaty
was an attempt to amend that by saying that the moon is part of the collective
heritage of humanity and that any economic activities on the moon and what
that yielded in terms of resources or research breakthroughs, even, that these
were to be shared equitably and under the auspices of international law.
Unfortunately, none of the [00:13:00] major space agencies of the world signed
onto this treaty, whereas the Under Space Treaty has over a hundred signatories
today, only a handful of countries signed onto the Moon Treaty. And what's
more in recent years with the economic landscape shifting with the booming
growth in the commercial space sector and the idea of prospecting and mining
asteroids and other off world resources.
There have been a lot of major legal decisions that have many worried. For
starters, you had the commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015.
Signed by the Obama administration that established a framework for US
citizens to own and sell resources extracted from other celestial bodies and more
to the points you had the executive order signed by the first Trump
administration in 2020 titled, encouraging International Support for Recovery
and Use of Space [00:14:00] Resources.
And this order was much more explicit in its purpose and its intent. It mentions
the Moon Treaty by name saying that the United States never signed it, and
therefore people have a right to declare property rights on the moon. However,
NASA came back at this with the Artemis Accords, which as I've said before,
did seem like an attempt to do a bit of an end run around the Trump
administration and its attempts to.Basically say HA at, or boys, when it came to the moon and property rights and
resource extraction, as NASA specifically stated in the Accords that its purpose
was to reinforce that space resource extraction and utilization can and will be
conducted under the offices of the Outer Space Treaty with specific emphasis
on articles two, six, and 11.
So there's those articles again. And in particular, article 11, section three. This
[00:15:00] really addresses the question of surface activities, and it says that
neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon nor any part thereof or
natural resource in place shall become the property of any state, international,
intergovernmental, or non-governmental organization, national organization, or
non-government entity, or of any natural person.
So, yes, while it doesn't specifically say companies can't do this, the language is
pretty clear. So coupled with the Artemis Accords and what it states about
commercial interests, they're basically saying you can extract resources, but
you're not gonna own the land you're on. You don't have property rights to it,
and what you're doing has to accord with international law.
So it will be interesting to see how that plays out. In any case, there has been a
fair bit of speculation as to why Elon Musk, [00:16:00] who founded SpaceX
with the sole mission of Jumpstarting Martian Exploration and building a city
on Mars, why he would now do this turnabout. And there have been some
interesting developments in the last few years that might provide some insight
there.
One of which includes the ongoing feud between Musk and Bezos, who he
views as his chief rival and chief competitor. And of course, Bezos certainly
returns to the favor. And while SpaceX has enjoyed a virtual monopoly now for
many years, blue Origin Jeff Bezos, commercial space firm. It has emerged in
the last little while as a new competitor and it's, and it's making some very
impressive strides.
The New Shepherd launches, for example, even though they are routinely
criticized as being nothing more than PR stunts for rich people, they
nevertheless, they've achieved a [00:17:00] launch cadence that is really quite
impressive. But more importantly than that is the development of the new Glen
Rocket. And this began with the first launch test of the new Glenn, which
managed to make it to orbit without a problem.
In fact, was able to deploy its payload, which was the blue ring Pathfinder, a
technology demonstrator to a medium earth orbit. So as the company had beenlagging behind SpaceX severely in terms of getting rockets to orbit, which was
something Musk made fun of in a tweet, typically. The inaugural launch of the
new Glen actually made it higher than low Earth orbit, which is a pretty big deal
and a very impressive accomplishment for this rocket on its very first flight.
And the second launch, which took place in November, 2025. They not only
launched a NASA payload, D two escapade spacecraft, and a communication
satellite. To the [00:18:00] Sun Earth, L two LA Grange Point, and that's where
the satellite went. And the excavate mission was established an orbit around
Mars. And on top of that, on the second flight, they were able to retrieve
successfully the booster, thus demonstrating reusability.
And so far, that's only two flights, but Blue Origin hopes to do four more this
year. And the rather rapid progress they're making, that's certainly something
that Musk would not have failed to notice. In addition, there's their Blue Moon
lander, which NASA has contracted for the use as part of the Artemis program,
specifically for the Artemis five and six missions.
And this of course, is in the spirit of competition and not awarding contracts to
single providers as NASA has typically maintained. But SpaceX still had a lock
on the all important Artemis three mission, a long awaited return to the moon.
They were gonna supply the human landing system, the [00:19:00] Starship
HLS, however, before he was replaced by Jared Isaac ING administrator, Sean
Duffy said in October of last year.
That they were opening up the competition again for an Artemis three HLS
specifically because, uh, Gordon concerns that the Starship would not be ready
in time and that the Chinese might actually beat NASA to the moon. And they
are currently planning on sending the first to the moon by 2030. And Sean
Duffy even intimated during an interview that Blue Origin was likely to be a
front runner in securing the RMS three contract.
Ann Musk, true to fashion, was really not pleased and started saying some very
petty and childish things on his platform. X. What Tamara Musk has become a
rather vocal critic of NASA in recent years, which included getting into a very
one-sided childish [00:20:00] flame war with an astronaut aboard the ISS, who
dared to correct him on some details regarding their return mission and as if
name calling wasn't enough.
He also began saying that the ISS should be deorbit and destroyed sooner than
2030 as planned. So it is possible that Musk has decided to shift his focus
because he believes that his full attention is needed if he's gonna to secure thelucrative contracts to bring NASA astronauts to the moon again, and it may
even be that he senses he's going to be pushed outta the running and has instead
decided that he's going to try and establish his own habitat on the moon to
compete with NASA and the Artemis program.
But it may also have something to do with Musk's recent shifts in terms of his
priorities and his vision for his various companies. For example, the merger
between SpaceX and his AI company [00:21:00] Xai. And as part of this
merger, Musk announced that the immediate focus would be the deployment of
a constellation of up to 1 million satellites in low earth orbit that would serve as
AI processing stations.
And this was meant to address two things. On the one hand, the rising electricity
demand that AI processing stations are gonna lead to. And of course, the
constant need to keep them at operating temperature, which requires a lot of
water, a precious and dwindling natural resource. And as he said at the time in
the company statement, by directly harnessing near constant solar power with
little operating or maintenance costs, these satellites will transform our ability to
scale compute.
It's always sunny in space. Launching a constellation of a million satellites that
operate as orbital data centers is the first step towards becoming a Cardus shev,
two level civilization, one that can harness the sun's full [00:22:00] power while
supporting AI driven applications for billions of people today and ensuring
humanity's multi-planetary future.
So in essence, by shifting focus to the Moon, Musk would have the ability
through SpaceX to build up the necessary infrastructure to support this satellite
mega constellation, and also to extend it to the moon where yes. A future base, a
self-sufficient city where intranet is needed and processing centers are available
in orbit.
So one could argue that this is part of Musk's current concerns with closing the
loop between space-based solar power robots and the development of ai. All of
which he views as absolutely intrinsic to commercializing space and building a
space economy. And yes, creating a post scarcity future, which is something
Musk has expressed support for in the [00:23:00] past.
He's certainly aware of the futurist language and predictions. It's something he
grew up with and what he set out to address in many ways to become part of.
And it's also possible that Musk has seen all these developments happening, and
he has come to feel like that by focusing on Mars, he might be left behind.He won't be able to carve out his part of this emerging space market, which as
we know from all of the behavior he has exhibited in recent years, this is
something that is very important to him. He has got a very, very massive ego.
And as some have ventured, he believes that only he can save the human race
and that he only really wants to see that happen.
If he can do it hyperbole maybe. But as the world's richest man, he surely feels
like he's got something to prove here. And as I opine [00:24:00] myself in a
recent article I wrote about this historic pivot, that it may be possible that Musk
has simply read the writing on the wall. By which I mean that for decades there
has been an ongoing debate about what is the best way to reach Mars, and
NASA's chosen mission architecture has always been the moon to Mars.
And others like Robert Zubrin who have favored the Mars Direct approach, they
have always disagreed with that. And Musk's past statements saying that the
moon is a distraction. Well, these echoed what Zubrin has said many times over
that Mars is where the future is. It's where the lucrative research is, it's where
the challenge is.
And that going back to the moon first is kind of a waste of time because there
are limited opportunities there in comparison. And speaking of Robert, he was
not too happy to hear about Musk's Pivot and he has penned [00:25:00] in an
op-ed and also stated in numerous interviews that the moon is not suitable for
human settlement and that the idea of building a self-sustaining city there is
likely to be Musk's greatest mistake.
Wow. That's certainly one for history to decide. And it does seem though, that
for the time being humanity's efforts in terms of crude space exploration and
establishing a human foothold beyond Earth, that they are focused on the moon
first. That this is where commercial development needs to happen first.
This is where exploration needs to happen first. Renewed exploration in the
case of nasa. And that ultimately that is how we're going to get to Mars using
the gateway and similar space stations and spacecraft that can make the journey
between the Moon and Mars, hopefully in a reasonable amount of time, so
likely involving a nuclear, [00:26:00] thermal, nuclear, electric, or bimodal
propulsion system.
So whatever his reasons or motivations, Musk has effectively said that he's on
board with this overall mission architecture. But of course, he also included that
the company is not abandoning Mars. As he also noted, SpaceX will also strive
to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about five to seven years.Now, whether that meant five to seven years after. Building a self-sustaining
city on the moon, which he's estimated would take 10 years, or whether or not
the company is planning on doing things in parallel that remains to be seen.
However, knowing Musk, the timetables, no matter what are optimistic and they
are likely to be subject to revision and delays as time goes on.
In any case, all we can really do is wait and see how this unfolds and it is sure to
be interesting if nothing else. Tune in next time when the [00:27:00] subject will
be at last panspermia, the notion that life is distributed throughout the cosmos
through interstellar objects. And we'll also take a look at some new proposals,
some new research breakthroughs that offer the potential to measure cosmic
expansion in a way that might actually resolve the Hubble tension.
One of the biggest mysteries in astronomy and cosmology today. In the
listening, I'm Matt, this been.