Space

Musk reconsiders: we will colonise the Moon first, then Mars

The richest man in the world changes his goals in deep space. But it is a choice that creates quite a few problems, all yet to be solved

by Leopoldo Benacchio

9 February 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Mars and the Moon are, at best, 50 million kilometres apart, but can be up to 400 million kilometres if they are on opposite sides of the Sun. But it only took Musk a minute to travel this remarkable distance.

In a post on X, the late Twitter, he stated "For those who don't know, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-sustainable city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve this in less than 10 years, while Mars would take more than 20 years... SpaceX will also commit to building a city on Mars and start doing so in about 5-7 years, but the main priority is securing the future of civilisation and the Moon is faster."

Perhaps he realised what analysts had been saying for a long time, namely that going to Mars, one way only, is complicated, that the Moon could first be used as a 'training ground' to understand how to make the big leap to the red planet.

Oxygen and regolith

To give a technical but easy example, Space X's big ship, StarShip, which seems to be working at the moment, at least on paper, needs about six fuel supplies per trip to Mars. Which means that 69% of all the mass that SpaceX will send into orbit for the Mars missions is liquid oxygen.

Here comes the fact that regolith, an abundant incoherent material on the lunar soil, contains on average 40% oxygen. A good opportunity for those with the oxygen extraction technology to take some money from Musk.

The other point is perhaps to be found in the marriage between SpaceX and xAI, strongly desired by Musk. Starlink, in fact, works well thanks to its direct-to-cellular service, currently working with various operators around the world. But the one million satellites that Musk has asked permission for are in danger of sucking up all the resources at the South African tycoon's disposal, and could put him in trouble. At the moment it is hard to say.

Elon, we have a problem

Another technical, but vital, problem is that there is atmosphere on Mars and so Musk, in his effort to make us a multiplanetary species, has developed a shuttle with extensive use of high-temperature stainless steel with a heat shield and fins to withstand the high temperatures of atmospheric ingress. This becomes a problem when you have no atmosphere, as on the Moon, and you have to go down with the rear end, because the weight is much greater than it should be, even though the Moon makes the shuttle 'weigh' a sixth of what it is on Earth.

The 'bad' commentators today recall Musk's apodictic phrases in the past, such as 'I think it is difficult to become multi-planetary on the Moon because it is much smaller than a planet. It has no atmosphere. It is not rich in resources like Mars. It has a 28-day day cycle, whereas the day on Mars is 24.5 hours. In general, Mars is much more suitable for developing into a self-sufficient civilisation'. Again: 'Mars has a 24.5-hour day, which is almost perfect.... Furthermore, Mars is much more likely to have a level of gravity (1/3 of Earth's) sufficient for raising children and for long-term health'.

But there are dozens of them on the Net. The future of xAI, whether in space or on the Moon, is important because at the moment it is a money-swallowing machine and perhaps even eats up Starlink's earnings in prospect. And then on the horizon, which is getting a little closer every day like the forest of doom in Verdi's unreachable Macbeth, going back to the Moon may be a reaction to the threat of Blue Origin, which is Jeff Bezos', taking a slice of the Nasa contract pie through the Artemis programme.