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Victoria Bela

Shi Huang

Elon Musk has pivoted from his long-standing focus on Mars, announcing an ambitious plan to set up a “self-growing city” on the moon in less than a decade.
The plan could see Musk’s aerospace company, SpaceX, competing for prime space with China’s planned International Lunar Research Station, which Beijing aims to establish by 2035.
While it is possible both the United States and China could have bases on the moon within a decade, a space expert said it would require massive infrastructure that neither country had put in place yet.
“For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the moon,” Musk wrote on social media earlier this week.
He added that the company could potentially achieve the goal in less than a decade, while doing so on Mars would take at least 20 years.
Musk’s statement is a 180-degree turn from a little over a year ago, when he posted on social media: “We’re going straight to Mars. The moon is a distraction.”
The billionaire entrepreneur explained this week that while the company still intended to begin work on a Mars city within five to seven years, the moon would be the initial focus to secure the “future of civilisation”.
Quentin Parker, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Hong Kong, said that it would be “much easier” to pursue life on the moon due to the differences in distances, costs and dangers.
“If you have some issue or emergency, you’re a few days away from Earth. You’re months away if you’re on Mars,” Parker said on Tuesday.
“I think Elon Musk is realising the scale of his Mars dream is probably a little bit more ambitious or too difficult at the moment compared to the practical reality of what his company can achieve in the next 10 to 15 years.”
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of colonising Mars. He has long spoken about the company’s plans to send humans to the red planet, announcing various timelines over the years for such missions.
The development of Starship, SpaceX’s reusable launch rocket that will service future crewed US launches, has faced challenges, with multiple test flights in recent years ending in catastrophic failures.
China has had its own recent failures during maiden launches of reusable rocket classes developed by both state-owned and commercial space entities.
Musk said that moon launches could happen every 10 days, compared to every 26 months for Mars, which would make building a lunar city significantly faster.
He said the priority shift was because he was worried that a “natural or man-made catastrophe” that halted resupply ships from Earth could cause a Mars colony to die out, while a lunar city could be “self-growing” – essentially self-sustaining – in less than a decade.


Parker said a city, according to the modern definition, required tens of thousands of people, and this would be impossible to achieve on the moon any time soon. He added that a self-growing city would also be “tricky”.
“Even a very modest city on the moon, first of all, it’s going to require a continuous human habitation there. Not short missions,” Parker said.
He said this would require massive infrastructure, including habitats, power, a closed life-support system, recycled air and water, food production, mining, materials processing and the ability to build things on the moon.
He added that it might be necessary to build habitats underground in lava tubes – natural underground tunnels – to avoid the risk of micrometeorite impacts.
“It’s very complicated. In fact, none of it’s really been demonstrated at all, [not] by the US or China, or private enterprises like SpaceX,” Parker said.
“I do think that there is going to be a semi-permanent, small, maybe partly reusable outpost on the moon where humans will live. I’m not sure how easy it would be to become a self-growing city.”
Parker said that what Musk had achieved with his companies was “quite remarkable” and he would not dismiss the idea of a full-fledged lunar base by 2035.
He added that both American and Chinese-led bases could be possible by then.
The International Lunar Research Station, a project led by China and Russia, is a planned permanent research base at the moon’s south pole. The project is targeting completion of a basic functional station by the mid-2030s and will include partners from over a dozen countries.
Last month, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) stated that it would plan and promote the development of new fields, including space resource development, during the 15th five-year plan period covering 2026-2030.
The chief space contractor has announced the launch of a resource development programme, called Tiangong Kaiwu, that will include space mining. CASC said lunar resource development would provide a material foundation for the “economic development of Earth-moon space and ultimately the development of solar system-wide resources”.
Potential exploitable resources on the moon include helium-3 – a possible clean energy source for nuclear fusion – and water, which can be converted into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for fuel.
Nasa aims to launch its Artemis 2 crewed lunar orbit exploration mission in the next few months. The mission will be the first US crewed flight to lunar orbit in over 50 years.


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Elon Musk has announced plans to set up a “self-growing city” on the moon in less than a decade. Photo: Shutterstock

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Elon Musk shifts short-term sights from Mars to the moon, where the race for prime space could pit his company against Chinese research base


Elon Musk shifts short-term sights from Mars to the moon, where the race for prime space could pit his company against Chinese research base.


Will Musk’s moon pivot put SpaceX on collision course with China’s lunar ambitions?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Elon Musk shifts short-term sights from Mars to the moon, where the race for prime space could pit his company against Chinese research base

Elon Musk shifts short-term sights from Mars to the moon, where the race for prime space could pit his company against Chinese research base