Geostrategy-Direct, February 10, 2026

By Richard Fisher

For over a decade SpaceX founder and leader Elon Musk has placed an emphatic corporate priority on developing the means — spaceships and associated habitation technology — to build permanent human settlements on Mars.

As the 4-astronaut Artemis-II circumlunar mission prepares for its 10-day journey in early March or early April, on Feb. 8 the United States push to put people back on the Moon by 2028 received a critical boost in the form of a corporate pivot by the SpaceX Corporation, which still has the lead in developing the Human Landing System (HLS) — based on its massive Starship resuable rocket.

Early in his second term President Trump even shared the goal for the United States to send people to Mars, an enthusiasm that waxed and waned with his political alliance with Musk, that was settling into a more limited friendship over shared goals by the end of 2025.

In addition, over the long process to pick the next Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), settling on his first choice, private astronaut and aeronautical entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, Trump has also revised his focus to making sure the United States returns its astronauts to the Moon before China — which could arrive as early as 2029.

On Oct. 20, 2025, then acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy reopened the competition for the manned HLS, putting SpaceX on notice that it was not moving fast enough to meet Trump’s goals.

So, Musk’s Feb. 8 announcement on his “X” platform was both welcome and necessary, saying:

“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+ years.

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.

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 civilization and the Moon is faster.”

Last Oct. 25, in response to Duffy’s announcement regarding HLS, Musk also posted, “Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words.”

Developing the SpaceX Starship to take over the astronaut lunar transport mission and lunar landing mission is certainly feasible and may even result in budgetary savings compared to the $2 to $4billion per mission cost of NASA’s current Space Launch System (SLS) that will perform the Artemis-II mission.

But Musk’s vow to build “a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years,” would be an even greater strategic victory for SpaceX and for the democracies.

The race for the Moon is far more important than the race back to the Moon; The real race is to beat China in building enough manned/unmanned Moon bases that can help ensure that the United States and its allies can defend their access to the Moon.

So far on the SpaceX webpage, it is shown that Starship HLS will have a crewed version that ascends from the Moon’s surface to return crew to lunar orbit to dock with the Orion crew transport ship or the Gateway small lunar space station.

A second HLS version appears to be mainly for cargo transport, with an elevator that can move the Starship HLS reported 100-ton payload to the lunar surface.

Starship HLS ships could also remain on the Moon and form the basis for early large human habitation shelters after being lowered to a horizontal position suitable for bulldozing regolith for structural stability and radiation protection.

With about three years remaining to meet President Trump’s goal for returning American to the Moon, SpaceX has yet to explain how it will reconfigure its Starship to replace the SLS in all lunar missions, or how it will build a “self-growing” city on the Moon.

SpaceX certainly has the right to play its cards close, but in a dynamic period in which wars and domestic crises can quickly shift spending priorities, earlier explanations can go far to securing a competitive edge, and the confidence of consumers, starting with President Trump.

  Mars can wait: Elon Musk pivots to the Moon