SpaceX changes priorities. A little over a year ago, Elon Musk He assured that ‘we are going straight to Mars, the moon is a distraction‘, but this Sunday he tweeted that ‘the main priority is to ensure the future of civilization and the moon is faster‘. The new objective, as explained by the tycoon in X, is to build a ‘city that grows by itself’something that can be achieved in much less time than on Mars, ‘in less than 10 years’.
With that expression, Musk refers to a self-sufficient citycapable of producing most of the resources it needs without needing to bring them from Earth, including oxygen, water and fuelwhich could be obtained from ice on the Moon.
Musk’s statement is consistent with recent information from The Wall Street Journal that indicated that investors had already been informed of the change of course by which Mars is relegated in the short term and the Moon is the first objective.
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+ years.
The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2026
According to Musk, developing the type of city he has in mind on Mars would take more than double the time needed to do it on the Moon; about 20 years, mainly for a matter of logistics and efficiency. The launch window to the Moon is much larger than that of the red planet, which will allow more flights to be carried out.
The alignment between Mars and Earth only allows missions to take off every 26 months, with a journey that lasts six. You can take off to the Moon every ten days and the trip lasts only two. This frequency allows you to iterate faster, replenish more regularly, and shorten the timeline for permanent human settlement.
Obviously, this is not something Musk or SpaceX have discovered nowso there must be other reasons for this change of course, probably Starship, which has already carried out 11 test flights and it is not known how many more it has left before it becomes operational, is not advancing as quickly as it would have liked..
In any case, SpaceX does not abandon the project of settling on Mars, something that would begin in a period of between five and seven yearsas Musk said in X.
Will we have a permanent presence on the surface of the Moon (the Artemis program already contemplates a lunar space station) in less than a decade? Musk, despite SpaceX’s achievements, is known for going overboard when talking about future projects. Regarding Mars, last year it said there would be an unmanned landing later this year, but Starship’s slow progress puts that in doubt. In front of investors, SpaceX hopes to be able to carry out an unmanned moon landing by March 2027.
This refocusing follows what was known at the end of January from another of Musk’s companies. tesla announced that it was stopping manufacturing its oldest models, the sedan Model S and the SUV Model Xand would convert the Fremont factory, in California, to produce humanoid robots instead Optimus. Tesla’s goal is no longer electric cars but rather robots, AI and autonomous driving.