Musk pivots SpaceX to build a “self-growing” Moon city within a decade to secure civilization's future
By isabelle // 2026-02-10
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  • SpaceX is shifting its primary focus from Mars to building a city on the Moon.
  • Elon Musk states a lunar city is achievable within ten years, compared to over 20 for Mars.
  • This pivot leverages the Moon's closer proximity and more frequent launch windows for faster development.
  • The first uncrewed Starship Moon landing is targeted for 2027.
  • Mars colonization remains a goal but is now a longer-term priority.
Elon Musk has declared a strategic pivot for his company SpaceX that will reshape the future of human space exploration. The long-stated goal of colonizing Mars is being temporarily sidelined for a more urgent and practical objective: building a permanent, expanding city on the Moon within the next ten years. This announcement, made by Musk on his social media platform X, signals a major recalibration based on logistical reality and a pressing desire to secure humanity’s foothold beyond Earth. For decades, the public narrative from SpaceX headquarters has been unequivocally focused on the Red Planet. The company’s Starbase facility in Texas, nicknamed the "Gateway to Mars," houses the development of the colossal Starship rocket, designed as the vessel to carry humanity to a new world. Musk himself has framed Mars colonization as a necessary hedge against planetary catastrophe, a mission to extend consciousness. Yet, in a detailed post on February 9, Musk presented a compelling case for the Moon as the critical first step. "The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars," Musk wrote. However, he added a crucial clarification: "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 logistical advantage

The reasoning behind this shift is rooted in simple orbital mechanics and travel times. Musk laid out the differences between the two destinations. A journey to Mars is only feasible during specific planetary alignments that occur roughly every 26 months, requiring a six-month voyage one-way. In contrast, launch windows to the Moon open approximately every ten days, with a trip lasting just about two days. "This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city," Musk explained. This faster iteration cycle is vital for solving the immense technical and human challenges of living off-world. The Moon becomes a proving ground, a nearby workshop where the systems needed for deep-space colonization can be tested, refined, and scaled without the years-long delays imposed by a Mars timetable.

A changed timeline

This new priority is reflected in SpaceX’s internal targets. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the company has informed investors it is prioritizing lunar missions and is targeting an uncrewed Starship landing on the Moon around March of 2027. This spacecraft is also central to NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface later this decade. Musk confirmed that Mars has not been abandoned, but delayed. "That said, SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster," he wrote. This shift arrives amid a renewed global race for the lunar surface, the first since the Apollo program ended with Apollo 17 in 1972. Nations like China and Russia are actively pursuing their own permanent lunar stations, adding a layer of geopolitical competition to the endeavor. Establishing a sustained presence is no longer just a scientific dream but a strategic objective. The pivot also follows major business developments at Musk’s conglomerate, including the acquisition of artificial intelligence company xAI by SpaceX, a move some analysts believe supports ambitions for space-based data centers. Furthermore, Musk noted that despite SpaceX’s pivotal role in NASA’s Artemis program, the space agency will account for less than 5% of SpaceX’s revenue this year. "The vast majority of SpaceX revenue is the commercial Starlink system," he stated. Musk has a well-documented history of setting ambitious timelines that often slip. Just last year, he dismissed the Moon as a "distraction," insisting SpaceX was going "straight to Mars." This reversal, therefore, is as notable for its pragmatic concession to physics as it is for its departure from his own previous declarations. Ultimately, this isn’t a story about abandoning a dream, but about choosing the most effective path to achieve it. The vision of a multi-planetary species remains, but the roadmap has been redrawn. By turning to the Moon first, Musk and SpaceX are betting that the quicker, more frequent cycles of learning and building on our celestial neighbor offer the surest way to eventually reach the stars. It is a calculated gamble that places a self-sustaining lunar outpost as the next critical chapter in the human story, a chapter we may witness being written within our lifetime. Sources for this article include: RT.com FoxBusiness.com ArsTechnica.com Reuters.com
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