Trump’s victory could accelerate Musk’s Mars mission, sources say – National
Elon Musk’s dream of sending people to Mars will become a national priority under the administration of US President-elect Donald Trump, sources said, pointing to major changes in NASA’s lunar program and the development of Musk’s SpaceX.
NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to use SpaceX’s Starship rocket to put people on the moon as a proving ground for the latest mission to Mars, is expected to focus more on the Red Planet under Trump and target a mission that hasn’t operated there in a decade, according to four people. they are not familiar. on Trump’s local policy agenda.
Targeting Mars with manned spacecraft is not only more ambitious than targeting the moon, but also fraught with risk and potentially more expensive.
Musk, who danced on stage at a Trump rally wearing an “Occupy Mars” T-shirt in October, spent $119 million on Trump’s White House bid and has successfully raised space policy at an unusual time in a presidential transition.
In September, a few weeks after Musk endorsed Trump, the latter told reporters that the moon was a “launch pad” for his ultimate goal of reaching Mars.
“At the very least, we’re going to get a realistic Mars plan, you’re going to see Mars being put as a goal,” said Doug Loverro, a space industry consultant who once led NASA’s human exploration division under Trump, who served as director. US President from 2017 to 2021.
SpaceX, Musk and the Trump campaign did not immediately return requests for comment. A NASA spokesperson said “it would be inappropriate to speculate on any changes by the new administration.”
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Plans are still subject to change, the sources added, as Trump’s transition team begins to take shape in the coming weeks.
Trump launched the Artemis program in 2019 during his first term and it was one of the few programs kept under the administration of President Joe Biden. Trump’s space advisers want to overhaul a program they argue has been crippled during his absence, the sources said.
Musk, who owns electric car maker TeslaTSLA.O and brain-chip startup Neuralink, has made deregulation and reducing bureaucracy another cornerstone of his support for Trump.
In space, the sources said, Musk’s desire for deregulation is likely to result in changes to the Federal Aviation Administration’s commercial office, which oversees private rocket launches and has frustrated Musk by slowing development of SpaceX’s Starship.
The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NASA under Trump, sources say, is likely to favor fixed-price space contracts that shift more of the burden to private companies and reverse the over-budget programs that have crippled Artemis’ budget.
That could spell trouble for NASA’s only rocket, the Space Launch System rocket (SLS), a $24 billion development since 2011 led by Boeing BA.N and Northrop Grumman NOC.N. Canceling the program, some say, would be difficult because it would cost thousands of jobs and leave the US more dependent on SpaceX.
Boeing and Northrop did not immediately return a request for comment.
Musk, whose predictions have sometimes proved overly ambitious, said in September that SpaceX would land a Starship on Mars in 2026 and a crewed mission would follow in four years. Trump said at campaign meetings that he discussed these ideas with Musk.
Many industry experts see this timeline as impossible.
“Is it possible for Elon to put a Starship on the surface of Mars in one go at the end of Trump’s term? Absolutely, he can do that,” said Scott Pace, the Trump administration’s top space policy official.
“Is that human activity on Mars? No,” Pace added. “You have to walk before you can run.”
