Elon Musk raises NASA’s moon ambitions: ‘We will go straight to Mars’

Although the founder of SpaceX Elon Musk Known for his outspoken and controversial comments on social networking site X, he has been relatively restrained when it comes to US space policy in recent years.

For example, he rarely criticizes NASA or their overall goal of returning humans to the moon through the Artemis program. Rather, Musk, who has long favored Mars as a human destination, has become more or less a team player when it comes to the space agency’s moon-focused plans.

This is understandable from a financial perspective, because SpaceX There are multi-billion dollar contracts to not only build the Human Landing System as part of the Artemis program but also to provide food, cargo and other logistics services to the planned Lunar Gateway. planned in orbit around the moon.

But privately, Musk has criticized NASA’s plans, suggesting that the Artemis Program moves too slowly and is too dependent on contractors seeking cost-plus government contracts and has little interest in brings results.

Policy silence is no more

Over the past 10 days, Musk has begun to make some of these private thoughts public. For example, on Christmas day, Musk wrote on X“Artemis’s architecture is extremely inefficient, because it is a work-maximizing program, not an outcome-maximizing program. There needs to be something completely new.”

Then, on Thursday night, he added this: “No, we’re going straight to Mars. The moon is a distraction.”

These are stark statements that directly contradict NASA’s plans to send a series of human missions to the lunar south pole by the end of the decade and establish a sustainable base of operations there with the Artemis program .

It would be one thing if Musk was just expressing his views as a private citizen. But since playing a key role in the election of Donald Trump as the next US president last year, Musk has taken on a key advisory role for the incoming administration. He was also partly responsible for nominating private astronaut Jared Isaacman to become NASA’s next administrator. Although Musk doesn’t direct US space policy, he certainly has a meaningful say in what’s going on.

So what does this mean for Artemis?

The fate of Artemis is a key question not only for NASA but also for the US commercial space industry, the European Space Agency and other international partners linked to human spaceflight. back to the moon. With Artemis, the United States is competing with China to establish a meaningful presence on the lunar surface.

Based on conversations with people involved in developing space policy for the Trump administration, I can make some educated guesses about how to interpret Musk’s comments. For example, none of these people would disagree with Musk’s assertion that “the Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient” and that some changes are necessary.

With that said, the Artemis program probably isn’t going away. After all, the first Trump administration created the program about five years ago. However, few people probably remember that Trump’s first White House pushed for more significant changes, including a “major overhaul” at NASA.

“I urge NASA to adopt new policies and adopt new thinking,” said then-Vice President Mike Pence in May 2019. “If our current contractors cannot meet this target, we will find contractors who do.” (Speaking of vice presidents, it is unlikely that the National Space Council will be established under J.D. Vance).