Moon To Mars | Stories From Space Podcast With Matthew S Williams

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The author has acknowledged that this podcast was recorded on the traditional unseated lands

of the Lacongan peoples.

Good afternoon, and welcome back to another episode of Stories from Space.

I'm your host, Matt Williams, and today's topic, the recent controversy and questions

surrounding the big pivot by Elon Musk, man who created SpaceX back in 2001 with the

sole purpose of engineering rockets and reducing launch costs so that humanity could jumpstart

the exploration of Mars, which he saw as something that was inevitable, but had been

a dream deferred.

And for the past 25 years, he's been working constantly towards that goal, incrementally

building up a rocket fleet, reducing the cost of launches through reusable rockets and

ride shares, and ultimately, it all came down to the development of the Starship.

The vehicle that was going to replace, oh, the other Falcon rockets.

From which Elon Musk envisioned, launching regularly from Earth, a thousand at a time,

he once said, that would be able to carry a hundred tons of cargo or a hundred passengers

each.

And that with this iteration with all this equipment and supplies and people being sent

to Mars, you would have the ability to build a self-sustaining city of 80,000 people.

So many people are now wondering why this sudden pivot.

As he announced on February 8th on X, coinciding with the Super Bowl, 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 plus years.

The mission of SpaceX remains the same, extend consciousness in life as we know it to the

Stars.

He included, as a caveat at the end, that SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city

and begin doing so in about five to seven years, but the overriding priority is securing

the future of civilization and the moon is faster.

And as already mentioned, this represents a huge departure for Elon Musk.

And he cited several very practical reasons as to why SpaceX should be focusing its efforts

on building a lunar base first, but the bigger question remains, why now?

What exactly conspired to convince Elon to stop saying that the moon was a distraction,

and Mars was the real goal, to start focusing on a moon to Mars mission architecture, which

is precisely what NASA has been doing for the past two decades.

And in terms of him saying the moon was a distraction, these were remarks that he made

as recently as last year.

So let's change in the meantime, well, quite a few things.

But first, it bears mentioning all the practical reasons for this switch.

And why it is that NASA, among other space agencies, had been looking to the moon as the

first step on a journey to Mars, rather than focusing on Mars direct plans.

And as we explored in a previous episode, the idea of a Mars direct mission architecture,

this is something that Robert Zubrin, the founder of the Mars Society and Astronautical

Engineer, and a long time advocate for the exploration of Mars, this was something that

he pitched to NASA back in the late 1990s.

And it's something he's been advocating for ever since.

In fact, years ago, when I had a chance of engaging him in a Q&A panel discussion, I asked

what specifically it was about the Moon to Mars mission architecture that he thought

was impractical or infeasible.

And he specifically mentioned orbital refueling, which speaks to what Elon Musk is planning

to do with his fleet of rockets.

Orbital refueling is not only a key part of his proposed architecture for getting to Mars,

but also for the Artemis program with the Starship Human Landing System, which is

we also explored in a previous episode, would require up to 20 refueling tankers to refuel

a single Starship, so it could break from orbit and actually make it to the moon.

In contrast, Zubrin has gone on record as saying that we could send missions directly to Mars

by ensuring that these splises end advance, and that this could be done with the space

launch system or the constellation program's original workup for the Aries 1 and 5 rocket,

the Aries 5 being the basis for the space launch system.

Nevertheless, NASA has been on the same page for all that time since the constellation

program back in 2005-2006.

And their architecture was, we head back to the Moon first, we build infrastructure there

that would allow us to send missions to Mars, and that this same infrastructure would

allow for more rapid resupply missions sent from the Moon rather directly from Earth,

and also would allow for follow-up missions mounted on a semi-regular basis.

And that is precisely what the infrastructure that they have planned to build in orbit

around the Moon and on the lunar surface would be for as well, allowing regular follow-up

missions with a frequency of about one per year.

And the reason is for doing things this way, it comes down to logistics and timing plain

simple.

And Musk of course mentioned all these in his post, but to go into them in a bit more detail.

For one, launch windows to Mars occur only about every 26 months.

And this coincides with Mars being at opposition in the night sky.

Which basically means that Mars and the Sun are on opposite sides of planet Earth.

They are opposed rather than being in conjunction.

And this point, reaching Mars using conventional propulsion would take six to nine months.

Now that's based on robotic missions that have been sent there in the past.

Sending crude vessels, they would need to have a real high velocity rating in order to make

it there in that same amount of time in order to break free of reserve and conduct a transmars

injection.

And a key point that he mentioned there was iteration.

It's not just about getting there, it's about getting the spacecraft back, getting them

refueled so you can send more payloads, more people.

And between that launch window and the distance, it's going to take a really long time to

actually build up a base in a self-sustaining city there.

So he was absolutely right in saying that it's easier to do this on the moon.

Not only are launch windows a lot more accommodating, you can launch several times a month rather

than every 26 months.

And as the Apollo missions demonstrated, it takes only about three days to get to the moon.

Which means that if anyone on the lunar surface there, any bases, any habitats, if they're

in any kind of trouble, things break down, they're running out of food and got a limited

supply of water and air, they can be resupplied in a matter of days.

And for spacecraft that are then returning to Earth, the turnaround time, getting to the

moon, landing, offloading, and possibly taking on stuff to bring home, like resources,

the turnaround time would be about 10 days.

So that's pretty attractive, return on investments right there.

And far more attractive from a build up, an iteration point of view, right?

With every flight, you're able to add more equipment, building materials, etc. onto

the lunar surface, and you can look forward to a much more rapid timeline there for developing

a self-sustaining city.

And as I mentioned, spacecraft returning from the moon, they could be hauling back resources

as part of a growing lunar economy.

And in terms of what kinds of resources this has been explored in great depth for many

decades.

For one, there's the prospect of mining helium-3 on the moon.

And helium-3 is relatively abundant on the moon, at least compared to Earth, because of

the constant solar wind bombardment of its surface.

And given that helium-3 is the ideal isotope for use in fusion reactors, its extraction

could fuel a emerging fusion economy.

And of course, there is the extensive mineral wealth.

As scientists have known ever since the Apollo astronauts brought back the moon rock samples,

the Earth and Moon have very similar compositions.

It's basically silicate, crust and mantle over top of a metallic core.

And also like Earth, its surface has been bombarded by meteorites and asteroids since the very

beginning of the solar system.

And so the surface itself is littered with trace metals from all of that bombardment.

So yes, much like as we explored in the last episode on asteroid mining, there is an

abundance of iron and nickel, as well as precious metals and rare earth elements that could

in theory be extracted from the lunar crust and soil, and that these would help fuel a

growing space economy, and help usher in an age of post-scarcity.

Not, of course, that's the optimistic appraisal, and there are a number of very sticky legal

issues that absolutely have to be worked out before any of this can be done.

Now there have been statements made and international agreements signed, but they're kind of broad

in their scope and a little general in their language.

So from a legal standpoint, yes, the details, which are always crucial, does a lot of work

that still needs to be done on that.

For example, you have the outer space treaty of 1967, and the moon treaty, or moon agreement

of 1979, and this treaty, as I'm sure I've mentioned in previous episodes, it establishes

that the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit, and in

the interest of all countries, and shall be the province of all mankind.

And that is the original language in which the agreement was written, but of course it

refers to all humanity.

So to boil it down, it's basically stating that space is for everyone, and when it comes

to the moon, and the question of mining and harvesting resources and the rights of commercial

entities, articles 26 and 11 really stand out.

Article 2 establishes that outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim

of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation or by any other means.

In other words, no one has a right to claim any part of space, and that would include

the moon.

Whereas Article 6 establishes that the parties to the treaty shall bear international

responsibility for national activities in outer space.

And last, Article 11 indicates that signatories must agree to inform the Secretary General

of the United Nations, as well as the public and the international scientific community

of the nature, conduct, location, and results of their activities in space.

However, there were many people in the international community who felt that the outer space

treaty was a bit ambiguous when it came to the issue of property rights on the moon, mainly

because the treaty spells out that no nation has the right to claim sovereignty of anything

in space, but it did not specifically mention private corporations.

So the moon treaty was an attempt to amend that by saying that the moon is part of the collective

heritage of humanity, and that any economic activities on the moon, and what that yielded

in terms of resources or research breakthroughs even, that these were to be shared equitably

and under the auspices of international law.

Unfortunately, none of the major space agencies of the world signed on to this treaty, whereas

the outer space treaty has over a hundred signatories today, while a handful of countries signed

on to the moon treaty.

And what's more, in recent years, with the economic landscape shifting, with the booming

growth in the commercial space sector and the idea of prospecting of mining asteroids

and other off-world resources, there have been a lot of major legal decisions that have

many worried.

For starters, you had the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015, designed

by the Obama administration that established a framework for our U.S. citizens to own and

sell resources extracted from other celestial bodies.

And more to the points, you had the executive order signed by the first Trump administration

in 2020, titled, Encouraging International Support for Recovery and Use of Space Resources.

And this order was much more explicit in its purpose and its intent.

It mentions the moon treaty by name, saying that the United States never signed it.

And therefore, people have a right to declare property rights on the moon.

However, NASA came back at this with the Artemis Accords, which as I've said before, did

seem like an attempt to do a bit of an end run around the Trump administration and its

attempts to basically say, have outer boys when it came to the moon and property rights

and resource extraction.

As NASA specifically stated in the Accords, that its purpose was to reinforce that space

resource extraction and utilization can and will be conducted under the offices of the

outer space treaty with specific emphasis on articles 2, 6, and 11.

But there are those articles again.

And in particular, Article 11 Section 3, this really addresses the question of surface

activities and it says that neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon nor any

part thereof or natural resource in place shall become the property of any state, international,

intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-government entity

or of any natural person.

So yes, while it doesn't specifically say companies can't do this, the language is pretty

clear.

So coupled with the Artemis Accords and what it states about commercial interests, they're

basically saying you can extract resources but you're not going to own the land you're

on.

You don't have property rights to it and what you're doing has to accord with international

law.

So we'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

In any case, there has been a fair bit of speculation as to why Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX

with the sole mission of jump-starting Martian exploration and building a city on Mars, why

he would now do this turnabout.

And there have been some interesting developments in the last few years that might provide some

insight there.

One of which includes the ongoing feud between Musk and Bezos, who he views as his chief

rival and chief competitor and of course Bezos certainly returns to the favor.

And while SpaceX has enjoyed a virtual monopoly now for many years, Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos's

commercial space firm, it has emerged in the last little while as a new competitor and

it's making some very impressive strides.

The new shepherd launches, for example, even though they are routinely criticized as

being nothing more than PR stunts for rich people, they nevertheless, they've achieved

even in launch cadence that is really quite impressive.

But more importantly than that is the development of the new Glenn rocket.

And this began with the first launch test of the new Glenn, which managed to make it

to orbit without problem.

And in fact, was able to deploy its payload, which was the Blue Ring Pathfinder, a technology

demonstrator, to a medium-earth orbit.

So as the company had been lagging behind SpaceX severely in terms of getting rockets

to orbit, which was something Musk made fun of in a tweet typically, the inaugural launch

of the new Glenn actually made it higher than Low Earth orbit, which is a pretty big deal

in a very impressive accomplishment for this rocket on its very first flight.

And the second launch, which took place in November 2025, they not only launched a NASA

payload, the two escapade spacecraft, and a communication satellite, to the Sun Earth

L2 Lagrange point, and that's where the satellite went, and the escapade mission was

established in orbit around Mars.

And on top of that, on the second flight, they were able to retrieve successfully the

booster, thus demonstrating reusability.

And so far, that's only two flights, but Blue Origin hopes to do four more this year,

and the rather rapid progress they're making, that's certainly something that Musk would

not have failed to notice.

In addition, there's their Blue Moon Lander, which NASA has contracted for the uses part

of the Artemis program, specifically for the Artemis 5 and 6 missions.

And this, of course, is in the spirit of competition, and not awarding contracts to single providers,

as NASA has typically maintained, but SpaceX still have a lock on the all-important Artemis

3 mission, a long-awaited return to the moon.

They were going to supply the human landing system, the Starship HLS.

However, before he was replaced by Jared Isaacman, netting administrator Sean Duffy said

in October last year that they were opening up the competition again for an Artemis 3 HLS,

specifically because Gordon concerns that the Starship would not be ready in time,

and that the Chinese might actually beat NASA to the moon, and they are currently planning

on sending the first Tycanauts to the moon by 2030.

And Sean Duffy even intimated during an interview that Blue Origin was likely to

be a frontrunner in securing the Artemis 3 contract,

and Musk, true to fashion, was really not pleased in starting seeing some very petty and childish

things on his platform X. What's more, Musk has become a rather vocal critic of NASA in recent years,

which included getting into a very one-sided childish flame war with an astronaut,

aboard the ISS, who dared to correct him on some details regarding their return mission.

And as if name color wasn't enough, he also began saying that the ISS should be deorbited and

destroyed sooner than 2030 as planned. So it is possible that Musk has decided to shift his

focus because he believes that his full attention is needed if he's going to secure the lucrative

contracts to bring NASA astronauts to the moon again, and it may even be that he senses he's

going to be pushed out of the running and has instead decided that he's going to try and establish

his own habitat on the moon to compete with NASA and the Artemis program. But it may also have

something to do with Musk's recent shifts in terms of his priorities and his vision for various

companies. For example, the merger between SpaceX and his AI company, XAI, and as part of this merger,

Musk announced that the immediate focus would be the deployment of a constellation of up to

one million satellites in the Earth orbit that would serve as AI processing stations.

And this was meant to address two things. On the one hand, the rising electricity demand that

AI processing stations are going to lead to. And of course, the need to keep them at operating

temperature, which requires a lot of water, a precious and dwindling natural resource.

And as he said at the time in a company statement, by directly harnessing near-constant solar power

with little operating or maintenance costs, these satellites will transform our ability to scale

compute. It's always sunny in space. Launching a constellation of a million satellites that

operate as orbital data centers is the first step towards becoming a Kardashev 2 level

civilization, one that can harness the sun's full power, while supporting AI-driven applications

for billions of people today and ensuring humanity's multi-planetary future. So, in essence,

by shifting focus to the moon, Musk would have the ability, through SpaceX, to build up the necessary

infrastructure to support this satellite mega constellation, and also to extend it to the moon,

where yes, a future base, a self-sufficient city, where the internet is needed,

and processing centers are available in orbit. So one could argue that this is part of Musk's

current concerns with closing the loop between space-based solar power robots and the development

of AI, all of which he views as absolutely intrinsic to commercializing space and building a space

economy, and yes, creating a post-scarcity future, which is something Musk has expressed

support for in the past. He's certainly aware of the futurist language and predictions,

it's something he grew up with, and what he set out to address in many ways, did become part of.

And it's also possible that Musk has seen all these developments happening, and he has come to

feel like that by focusing on Mars, he might be left behind. He won't be able to carve out his

part of this emerging space market, which as we know, from all of the behavior he's exhibited

in recent years, this is something that is very important to him. He has got a very, very massive

ego, and has some have ventured, he believes that only he can save the human race, and that

he only really wants to see that happen if he can do it. Hyperbole maybe, but as the world's

richest man, he surely feels like he's got something to prove here. And as I opined myself in

a recent article I wrote about this historic pivot, that it may be possible that Musk has simply

read the writing on the wall, by which I mean that for decades there has been an ongoing debate

about what is the best way to reach Mars. And NASA's chosen mission architecture has always been

the moon to Mars. And others like Robert Zubin, who have favored the Mars Direct approach,

they have always disagreed with that. And Musk's past statements, saying that the moon is a distraction,

these echoed what Zubin has said many times over, that Mars is where the future is,

it's where the lucrative research is, it's where the challenge is, and that going back to the

moon first is kind of a waste of time because there are limited opportunities there in comparison.

And speaking of Robert Zubin, he was not too happy to hear about Musk's pivot, and he has penned

in an op ed, and also stated in numerous interviews, that the moon is not suitable for human

settlement, and that the idea of building a self-sustaining city there is likely to be Musk's greatest

mistake. That's certainly one for history to decide. And it does seem though that for the time being,

humanity's efforts in terms of crude space exploration and establishing a human foothold beyond

earth, that they are focused on the moon first, that this is where commercial development needs to

happen first, this is where exploration needs to happen first, renewed exploration in the case of NASA.

And that ultimately, that is how we're going to get to Mars, using the gateway and similar space

stations, and spacecraft that can make the journey between the moon and Mars, hopefully in a

reasonable amount of time, so likely involving a nuclear thermal nuclear electric or

bi-modal propulsion system. So whatever's reasons or motivations Musk has effectively said that

he's on board with this overall mission architecture. But of course he also included that the company

is not abandoning Mars, as he also noted, SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin

doing so in about five to seven years. Now whether that meant five to seven years after

building a self-sustaining city on the moon, which he's estimated would take 10 years,

or whether or not the company is planning on doing things in parallel, that remains to be seen.

However, knowing Musk, the timetables, no matter what, are optimistic, and they are likely to

be subject to revision and delays as time goes on. In any case, all we can really do is wait and see

how this unfolds, and it is sure to be interesting if nothing else. Here in the next time, when the

subject will be at last, pan spermia, the notion that life is distributed throughout the cosmos

through interstellar objects. And we'll also take a look at some new proposals, some new research

breakthroughs, that offer the potential to measure cosmic expansion in a way that might actually

resolve the Hubble tension, one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy and cosmology today.

In the meantime, thank you for listening. I'm Matt Williams, and this has been Stories from Space.

RSA C-2026 conference, where insights drive action, solutions emerge, and community connections

spark innovation. Be there March 23rd through March 26th. Secure your spot at rsaconference.com

forward slash ITSPMAG26.