Elon Musk On Why First Moon Landing Was An 'Anomaly'

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said recently that the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon-landing mission was an “anomalous situation.”

What Happened: “The fact that we were able to go to the Moon in '69 was such an anomalous situation, it was like reaching into the future and bringing the technology forward,” said Musk on the "Full Send" podcast.

The landings, which saw Neil Armstrong become the first human to step on the lunar surface, were “not the natural pace of technology development,” according to the SpaceX founder.

“It’s just that the United States just collectively decided that this has got to be done,” Musk said, referring to the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

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Why It Matters: Musk agreed with the podcast hosts that it was “weird” that the U.S. had not returned to the Moon’s surface since 1972. 

"We’ll go to the Moon, SpaceX has an asset contract to take astronauts to the Moon," Musk said, adding that SpaceX’s super-heavy-lift launch vehicle Starship is “gigantic compared to anything that’s been done before.” 

“It’s capable of putting 100 tons of payload on the Moon. You could build a Moon base with a Starship.”

Musk said, “We could go way beyond what was done with the Apollo program, where they had a small lander.”

SpaceX would take astronauts to the Moon before it took them to Mars, the billionaire entrepreneur said.

"I think we should build a city on the Moon and on Mars."

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Originally published Aug. 9, 2022.