Elon Musk says SpaceX will focus more on its lunar city ambitions, putting his Mars self-sustaining human colony plans on hold for now.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that the company would be pausing its Mars mission plans for the time being and focusing more on building a self-growing city on the Moon instead.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
The shift to the so-called Moon Base Alpha project is due to the time that it would take to create a human settlement on Mars, which could be upwards of 20 years, whereas a Moon city could potentially be built in half that time.
“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 (2 day trip time). This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city,” the tech billionaire said in an X post on Sunday.
“That said, SpaceX will also 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 civilisation, and the Moon is faster.”
Back in January 2025, Musk had referred to the Moon as a “distraction”. However, since autumn 2025, the tech founder has been hinting more towards SpaceX’s lunar city ambitions.
Despite this, Musk reiterated that the company is not changing its long-term mission to extend human consciousness and life to Mars and space.
SpaceX had planned an uncrewed mission to Mars for this year with its new Starship rocket. But that project has been delayedmainly due to issues with the rocket like surprise explosions and liquid oxygen leaks. Concerns about planetary timing issues further complicated the project.
Euronews Next has contacted SpaceX for comment.
Musk’s grandiose space plans
Elon Musk has also shared some of his other ambitious plans for space, which include building factories on the Moon to manufacture artificial intelligence satellites and associated components, such as solar cells, and radiators.
Using electromagnetic launch systems, these AI satellites would be launched into space from the Moon’s surface.
Musk has also revealed that he plans to build massive space data centres sent to orbit.They would handle sophisticated AI computing processes and save on high cooling and power costs on Earth.
SpaceX isn’t the only aerospace company setting its sights on the Moon.. Rival Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has also said that it would be putting its space tourism flights on hold, to redirect resources to building a lunar lander for NASA.
