Elon Musk said Sunday that SpaceX is now putting more emphasis on building a self-sustaining city on the moon, a goal he believes can be reached within the next 10 years.
Elon Musk announced SpaceX’s new focus on building a self-sustaining city on the moon within ten years. (Reuters)He said the company still plans to work on its long-held dream of building a city on Mars within the next five to seven years, but added that settling the moon first is a faster and more practical step to safeguard humanity’s future, reports news agency Reuters.
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Musk’s statement coincides with recent reports that SpaceX has told investors it will focus on missions to the Moon before attempting Mars. The report said that the agency was aiming to land an unmanned moon by March 2027. Earlier, Musk said that a manned mission to Mars could happen by the end of 2026.
The push to return to the moon comes as the United States competes with China to send humans there again this decade. No man has been on the moon since NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
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Last week, Musk announced that SpaceX had acquired his artificial intelligence company xAI in a major deal. Supporters believe the move could help SpaceX develop space-based data centers, which Musk says use less energy than those on Earth as AI computing demands grow.
SpaceX is also considering a public listing later this year that could raise up to $50 billion, making it the largest initial public offering ever, the report said.
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Musk said NASA will make less than 5 percent of SpaceX’s revenue this year, even though the company has a $4 billion contract under NASA’s Artemis program to land astronauts on the moon using Starship rockets. He added that most of SpaceX’s revenue comes from its Starlink satellite internet service.
(with input from Reuters)