Article Elon Musk: “We’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction.”

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https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/el...straction/

EXCERPTS: Although SpaceX founder Elon Musk is known for outspokenness and controversial comments on his social media site X, he has been relatively restrained when it comes to US space policy in recent years.

For example, he has rarely criticized NASA or its overall goal to return humans to the Moon through the Artemis Program. Rather, Musk, who has long preferred Mars as a destination for humans, has more or less been a team player when it comes to the space agency's lunar-focused plans.

[...] But privately, Musk has been critical of NASA's plans, suggesting that the Artemis Program has been moving too slowly and is too reliant on contractors who seek cost-plus government contracts and are less interested in delivering results.

During the last 10 days, Musk has begun airing some of these private thoughts publicly. On Christmas Day, for example, Musk wrote on X, "The Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient, as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program. Something entirely new is needed."

Then, on Thursday evening, he added this: "No, we’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction."

[...] It would be one thing if Musk was just expressing his opinion as a private citizen. But since playing a significant part in the election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States last year, Musk has assumed an important advisory role for the incoming administration. He was also partly responsible for the expected nomination of private astronaut Jared Isaacman to become the next administrator of NASA. Although Musk is not directing US space policy, he certainly has a meaningful say in what happens.

[...] Based upon 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. None of these people, for example, would disagree with Musk's assertion that "the Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient" and that some changes are warranted... (MORE - missing details)

[Yazata]

I think that when Elon said "We're going straight to Mars. The Moon is just a distraction", he was deviating from the repeated NASA assertion that Artemis' return to the Moon is a valuable and even necessary step towards eventually reaching Mars. Elon disagrees and thinks that the most straightforward path to Mars is to aim direct at Mars, without going to the Moon first.

More comments about points Eric Berger raised in his article:

Elon was talking about SpaceX's company goals, he wasn't talking about American spaceflight or NASA in particular. He wasn't denying that a permanent presence on the Moon is a desirable goal. NASA can focus on the Moon (I'd personally support that) and save Mars for later. But if they wait too long, they might find SpaceX already there. (Which is fine, Mars is a whole planet and big enough for everybody. The Chinese might get there eventually, but they seem to be aiming at the Moon first too.)

Even if NASA cancels SLS and relies entirely on privately developed rockets, they will still have Blue's New Glenn and ULA's Vulcan, along with the crewed lunar lander that Blue is developing and a whole variety of smaller cargo landers from a variety of companies. SpaceX needn't be (and shouldn't be) the only game in town.

What's more, I doubt very much that SpaceX would turn down NASA's attempts to hire Starship for lunar missions. SpaceX's eager pursuit of the Artemis HLS contract is ample evidence of that. Elon's Mars goal is going to be very expensive and SpaceX will have to pay for it somehow. Starlink will probably take care of a lot of it, but additional revenue streams will almost certainly be welcome. That's why I anticipate not only lunar Starships, but also cargo heavy lifters to Earth orbit carrying things like space-station modules. NASA will probably lean very heavily on Starship to achieve the it's Moon goals, but if I read Elon right, we are unlikely to see SpaceX company funded Moon bases.

So I think that I would parse Elon's remark to mean that traveling to Mars without going to the Moon first remains the SpaceX goal which will largely be funded in-house. But they aren't slamming the door on the Moon, provided that somebody else pays for it and that it's profitable for SpaceX, which would help enable the ultimate Mars missions.