Elon Musk targets self-growing Moon city within 10 years

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said SpaceX aims to build a self-growing city on the Moon within a decade, citing faster launch cycles, while maintaining plans to establish a self-sustaining human settlement on Mars within about 20 years.

New Delhi: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Monday said he is aiming to build a self-growing city on Moon in less than 10 years, followed by human presence on Mars in about 20 years.

According to the world’s richest man, 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”.

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In a post on his X social media platform, Musk said the mission of SpaceX remains the same — extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars.

“It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the Moon every 10 days (2 day trip time). This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city,” he posted.

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 civilisation and the Moon is faster”.

Last September, Musk said that the first uncrewed Starship mission will be launched to the Red Planet in two years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. Starship is the world’s most powerful rocket and will be used to send humans to the Moon and then eventually to Mars.

The tech billionaire said the first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years.

According to him, flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years.