Article highlights:
Although SpaceX founder Elon Musk is known for outspokenness and controversial comments on his social media site X, he has been relatively restrained when it comes to US space policy in recent years.
But privately, Musk has been critical of NASA’s plans, suggesting that the Artemis Program has been moving too slowly and is too reliant on contractors who seek cost-plus government contracts and are less interested in delivering results.
During the last 10 days, Musk has begun airing some of these private thoughts publicly. On Christmas Day, for example, Musk wrote on X, “The Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient, as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program. Something entirely new is needed.”
Then, on Thursday evening, he added this: “No, we’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction.”
The fate of Artemis is an important question not just for NASA but for the US commercial space industry, the European Space Agency, and other international partners who have aligned with the return of humans to the Moon. With Artemis, the United States is in competition with China to establish a meaningful presence on the surface of the Moon.
In all likelihood, NASA will adopt a new “Artemis” plan that involves initiatives to both the Moon and Mars. When Musk said “we’re going straight to Mars,” he may have meant that this will be the thrust of SpaceX, with support from NASA. That does not preclude a separate initiative, possibly led by Blue Origin with help from NASA, to develop lunar return plans.
He also said that SpaceX would land astronauts on Mars in 2024. That’s that I guess.
His timelines have the tendency to be… optimistic.
They have a tendency to fail to meet insane goals, but still beat everyone else in the process.
Turning “impossible” into “late”.
At least hyperloop, solar panel roof tiles and city car tunnels want a word with you.
What are you talking about? This is a spaceflight community talking about SpaceX, not Elon. I couldn’t care less about the projects you listed.
Sorry, forgot to add X.
When Musk said “we’re going straight to Mars,” he may have meant that this will be the thrust of SpaceX, with support from NASA.
That’s quite a generous interpretation. Musk doesn’t see a meaningful difference between his companies and the US Government anymore.
Sounds like something someone who can’t manage to get to the moon might say.
SpaceX have already delivered several payloads to trans-lunar injection (Beresheet, Hakuto-R, IM-1), and are developing a lunar lander for NASA. They just have no interest in spearheading their own lunar program.
I wonder if this is a similar goal-post moving as in the space race with the ussr. Maybe we can’t get back to the moon as fast as the Chinese, but we have a chance to get to Mars first?
Probably not though, it’s Musk and he says random shit all the time.
I can’t imagine working for this guy. SpaceX is a cool company but to have him at the top would be way too much. But here we are in the idiocracy timeline we’re now he’s bought his way into our government so I guess we’re getting a sense of that, even without working for him
There’s something to be said for working for a big company that’s still able and willing to make hard pivots and override corporate inertia.
I wouldn’t personally want to work “hard core” hours for the guy, though.
“We’re going straight to Mars”, in context, was about not stopping at the moon to refuel, but rather to refuel in Earth orbit and go directly to Mars from there. It wasn’t about not going to the moon, period.
Funny how MAGAts always need translators these days to tell everyone what they actually meant, which is always wildly off from what they actually said.
I think this just a quote out of context. The tweet it was responding to was about setting up liquid oxygen depots on the moon to sell to SpaceX missions to Mars.
