Warum sollte Elon Musk plötzlich vom Mars zum Mond wechseln? | „SpaceX hat seinen Fokus bereits auf den Bau einer selbst wachsenden Stadt auf dem Mond verlagert.“
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/has-elon-musk-given-up-on-mars/
Warum sollte Elon Musk plötzlich vom Mars zum Mond wechseln? | „SpaceX hat seinen Fokus bereits auf den Bau einer selbst wachsenden Stadt auf dem Mond verlagert.“
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/has-elon-musk-given-up-on-mars/
41 Kommentare
>As more than 120 million people tuned in to the Super Bowl for kickoff on Sunday evening, SpaceX founder Elon Musk turned instead to his social network. There, he tapped out an extended message in which he revealed that SpaceX is pivoting from the settlement of Mars to building a “self-growing” city on the Moon.
>“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,” Musk wrote, in part.
>This is simultaneously a jolting and practical decision coming from Musk.
>Why it’s a jolting decision
>A quarter of a century ago, Musk founded SpaceX with a single-minded goal: settling Mars. One of his longest-tenured employees, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell, described her very first interview with Musk in 2002 to me as borderline messianic.
>“He was talking about Mars, his Mars Oasis project,” Shotwell said. “He wanted to do Mars Oasis, because he wanted people to see that life on Mars was doable, and we needed to go there.”
>She was not alone in this description of her first interaction with Musk. The vision for SpaceX has not wavered. Even in the company’s newest, massive Starship rocket factory at the Starbase facility in South Texas—also known as the Gateway to Mars—there are reminders of the red planet everywhere. For example, the carpet inside Musk’s executive conference room is rust red, the same color as the surface of Mars.
>In the last 25 years Musk has gone from an obscure, modestly wealthy person to the richest human being ever, from a political moderate to chief supporter of Donald Trump; from a respected entrepreneur to, well, to a lot of things to a lot of people: world’s greatest industrialist/super villain/savant/grifter-fraudster.
Because he probably wants to go to the Moon or Mars himself in his lifetime. With Mars seeming ever more unlikely – and the Moon realistically attainable – this might be why he’s shifting focus.
Because investors. IPO is coming up soon, and Mars is too far of a goal for Wall Street.
I bet it’s the delays to the contracts to deliver the lander for the moon mission and perhaps further prospects of contracts. Nasa can’t say they’re distracted or resources are being wasted.
1. It’s easier
2. It’s “new” which excites investors more
3. He has inside information about upcoming government grants
Mars was always hype and never realistic
I am very confused. There was going to be a trip to Mars in 2026, some humans in 2030, and now we are settling for the moon?
It is as if he just say things without proper planning but to bump up the SpaceX share price, but the majority of the things he say are baloney and do not happen.
I am not sure we can trust his moon colony and timeline either.
Because NASA will pay him to send rockets to The Moon.
I don’t understand the mystery. Name one deadline he’s met.
Do we even have everything we need on the Moon for self growing City? Wole starship methane thing was because its „easy“ to manufacture on the Mars. Is it possible and feasible to produce methane on the Moon?
I thought it was „a distraction“?
1) Kill the moon missions by saying they’re too easy and to do Mars.
2) Once competitors are out of the picture, change back to the moon.
3) Make tons of money lying to manipulate the stock market because nothing matters anymore.
Because it’s all bullshit.
We are living in the Simpsons „monorail“ episode. Musk will get billions in taxpayer funds to build shit that has no hope of going anywhere.
Rinse and repeat.
Over promise and under deliver: The Tech Bro Way!
Because it’s a scam. He was never going to put anyone on Mars by the end of the year, so it’s important to keep moving the goalposts. Example: FSD.
Maybe because SpaceX is actually being paid to develop the moon lander?
for those not in the know, the moon is the next stop. Elon is changing his tune on MArs, because the contracts for lunar exploration are coming and he doesnt want to miss out on any free money
Because it’s just too fucking hard to get to Mars. To visualize this, take a quarter and hang it off one end of a football goalpost. That’s the Earth. Take a dime and hang it off the other end. That’s the moon. This represents the farthest we have ever sent humans in space after a decade of effort.
Mars is on the other end of the football field hanging off the other goal post. Except it’s not just one football field, it’s 30 of them.
edit: originally, I said 10 football fields but it’s more like 30.
He had no interest in sending people to Mars. Everything he does is for marketing to get his names out there.
Remember when musk was going to build the Hyperloop?
Mars probably remains his ultimate goal.
But the Moon is both a heck of a lot closer and what the US Government is actually willing to sink money into right now.
While SpaceX makes money from Starlink, they also make a shit ton of money being the rider for other private companies and different governments.
If private companies and other governments are also willing to also invest in a Moon shot, then as a business, it make sense for Elon and SpaceX to invest in going to the Moon right now to keep the money flowing.
Because it was always a grift. Just like data centers in orbit is now. It’s easy, people keep falling for it.
Gateway to ~~Mars~~ Data Centers in Space! (Also moon).
Occupy ~~Mars~~ Low Earth Orbit.
We gotta know the WHOLE Mars thing was a grift right? It was never going to realistically happen with Musk and his acolytes running the show. It sounds nice and gets a good headline from a tech outlet or cool t-shirt and thats about it. The moon is and for our lifetimes will be the only realistic manned space goal.
If you still believe Elon Musk you’re a fool.
China is making serious progress towards going to the moon and he’s gotta have insider knowledge on how they’re progressing. I’ve heard China wants to land on the south Pole where all the water is and possibly make claims to the territory. This would seriously hamper any other countries progress on the moon if China controlled the water. He probably thinks he can get there sooner and stake his claim.
Because it’s all bullshit, but Elon’s new bullshit make money line go up.
I posted this only 6! days ago:
“And thus a sad end to SpaceX’s primary vision is here. It may still take a while, but this will kill the long term vision of the company.
Mars just got a lot farther away.”
Didn’t think it would be THAT fast.
I also think SpaceX is suddenly realizing just how much farther along Blue Origin’s moon landing plans are than we all thought, and are starting to take it seriously.
I think the long cycle time is a good argument against using Mars as the first destination. There are many things that need to be developed that apply in a similar fashion to both the Moon and Mars, and having the ability to iterate more quickly than every 2 years does make sense.
I don’t think the Moon is a very good back-up location for humanity. It’s really more of a mining outpost than a fixer-upper with any potential. But it’s pretty good for practice. Hopefully they will keep the same cadence for Mars anyway, and simply add the Moon program. After all, having a large and healthy Moon program does make the Mars program very much cheaper to run.
Mass drivers on the moon to make data centres in space more economical.
People forget that the Cybertruck was delivered 3 years late and that the roadster was never delivered.
Boring company anyone?
Because he’s a con artist and the only way to keep going is to fire up a new grift every few years or so,
The moon is a good stepping stone to other plants. If the Helium 3 can be extracted, it could help make feul to get us elsewhere. Getting some infrastructue on the moon seems like a better option IF he still decided to go to Mars. Or, he’s just been watching a lot of „For All Mankind“ on AppleTV like me and decided to run with it.
If SpaceX goes public their investors are going to want real attainable goals
because he has only ever been chasing government money.
As NASA has been told to pivot back to the Moon, Musk is now trying to get more of that sweet sweet rocket cash, because SpaceX does not work without billions in Government funding.
Uh, same reason he “pivoted” from fully autonomous self-driving cars being just a few years away? He’s what we call a shyster who promises the stars, then delivers a fraction of those promises years behind schedule. It’s an advanced rhetorical technique known as “lying.” You might have even encountered this rare phenomenon once or twice in your life.
The most hilarious thing about these threads is that Musk skeptics have been saying for years that Mars was unattainable and a stupid idea, and Musk fans have always adamantly pushed back against that; but every single one of them in order to defend Musk *now* has to be all like „well of course Mars was a silly idea, everbody knows the moon makes more sense…“
Starting with the moon first seems like a logical step to me. But I highly doubt that has anything to do with his decision.
Radiation is the main reason. Mars = Death
Pretty sure it’s all about money. There are resources on the moon. Securing those with a base will fill Musks pockets.
The same bs Trump is doing on earth, they want to expand to the moon.
I suspect people are starting to worry about Artemis III with Artemis II launching in the next few weeks. I’ve been seeing a LOT of content surrounding Starship and how it’s primarily designed for Mars travel, leading to it being overengineered for the moon. With Artemis III entirely hinging on SpaceX delivering Starship, he really needs to rally support right now.