SpaceX CEO Eyes Space Stations On Mars And Moon Before Even One Succesful Starship Flight

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Saturday said that the rocket manufacturing company will be building a space station on Mars and Moon.

What Happened: Musk plans to build a self-sustaining city on Mars by delivering sufficient payload to the planet with its Starship launch vehicle. In 2023, Musk said that he hopes to reach Mars by 2033 and develop a thriving base on Mars in 15 years. In fact, Musk has previously even voiced his dreams of dying on Mars.

Responding to a question on whether SpaceX would consider building a space station, Musk on Friday replied, “Mars (and the moon).”

Why It Matters: SpaceX’s Starship is touted to be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle, capable of carrying up to 250 metric tonnes. It is fully reusable, powered by methane-oxygen staged combustion engines, and capable of carrying up to 100 people on long-duration interplanetary flights.

SpaceX has attempted two flight tests of its Starship thus far. During the first flight in April,  the rocket exploded in less than four minutes after take-off.

Starship’s second liftoff on Nov. 18 saw successful stage separation, but the booster experienced an explosion shortly afterward. The spacecraft lost contact with SpaceX after reaching an altitude of nearly 150 kilometers, failing to complete the test launch’s goal of a round-trip flight to space with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. 

NASA is currently relying on the success of Starship to land humans on the moon in the next few years under its Artemis program. The agency expects to land Americans back on the Moon in September 2026 with the Artemis III mission.

The last time humans set foot on the Moon was in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.

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Image Credit – SpaceX