Elon Musk calls NASA’s lunar ambitions: “Let’s go straight to Mars”

Also the founder of SpaceX Elon Musk known for his wit and controversial comments on his social networking site X, he has been relatively tight-lipped when it comes to US space policy in recent years.

For example, he rarely criticized NASA or its overall goal of returning humans to the moon through the Artemis program. Rather, Musk, who has long favored Mars as a destination for humans, is more or less a team player when it comes to the space agency’s moon-focused plans.

This is understandable from a financial perspective, as SpaceX has contracts worth billions of dollars not only to build a Human Landing System as part of the Artemis program, but also to provide food, cargo and other logistics services to a planned Lunar Gateway in orbit around the moon

But privately, Musk has been critical of NASA’s plans, suggesting that the Artemis program has been progressing too slowly and is too dependent on contractors seeking more expensive government contracts and are less interested in delivering results.

Silence on politics is no more

Over the past 10 days, Musk has begun to publicly air some of these private thoughts. On Christmas Day, for example, Musk wrote about X“Artemis’ architecture is extremely inefficient, as it is a job-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program. Something new is needed.”

So, Thursday night, added this: “No, we’re going straight to Mars. The moon is a distraction.”

These are definitive statements that directly contradict NASA’s plans to send a series of human missions to the lunar south pole later this decade and establish a sustainable base of operations there with the Artemis program.

It would be one thing if Musk was just expressing his opinion as a private citizen. But since he played 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 does not direct US space policy, he certainly has a significant say in what happens.

So what does this mean for Artemis?

The fate of Artemis is an important question not only for NASA, but for the commercial space industry of the United States, the European Space Agency, and other international partners who have aligned with the return of man to the moon. With Artemis, the United States is competing with China to establish a significant presence on the surface of the moon.

Based on 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, disagree with Musk’s assertion that “the architecture of Artemis is extremely inefficient” and that some changes are justified.

That being said, the Artemis program is not likely to go away. After all, it was the first Trump administration that created the program about five years ago. However, it may be less remembered that Trump’s first White House pushed for more significant changes, including a “major course correction” at NASA.

“I call on NASA to adopt new policies and embrace a new mindset,” then Vice President Mike Pence said in May 2019. “If our current contractors cannot meet this goal, then we will find those who will.” (Speaking of the vice president, it is unlikely that the National Space Council will be reconstituted under JD Vance).