Please read the original post of Elon Musk that he said he would change his focus from Mars to the Moon. Priority will be given to the city on the Moon in the next 10 years while on Mars is 20+ years. Can you find any questions?
The reason is that because of speed of circulation of Mars and Earth is not the same, so we have to wait for 26 months in order to take the shortest distance to Mars, but to the Moon only need to wait 10 days. As for time of travelling, to the Mars he said is 6 months, actually 6 to 7 months. The travelling time to the Moon he said is 2 days, but for Apollo 11, it took 76 hours, more than 3 days. Now space crafts are faster, a round trip still needs 144 to 168 hours depends on different parts of the Moon as destination.
Please refer to The Express of 20260128, I quoted a news
And in 20251215, I started a series of topic on Mars because “Large Reservoir of Liquid Water” confirmed found in South Pole of Mars.
What’s wrong? The distance of Mars to earth remains the same, there has not been any changes. There is only one chance of going to Mars in every 26 months remains the same as Day One he knew it. No changes at all.
Elon Musk actually wants to develop space data centre for on earth there is not enough energy and must use solar energy for it runs 24 hours a day and no need to cool down. For in space, there is no atmosphere and where sunlight is block, temperature is minus 200 degree and automatically cools down the solar engine. Musk is planning to shoot one million satellite to lower orbit of the earth to occupy the best locations. For other companies like NVDA is also having plans to develop data centre and solar energy in space. Other countries like Japan, China, India is going to develop similar projects in lower orbit of the earth.
Under what circumstances can Elon Musk fulfil his target of one million satellite? He has to use his SpaceX rocket, which is the largest in the world to shoot up for 10,000 times. People can say, never mind, they are all reusable, therefore the cost is quite low. But there is one thing will consume up, that is Liquid Methane. Even all minerals on earth are consumed still not enough, must find it on the Moon. For each launching of the SpaceX rocket, it needs propellant of 4,800 ton. Out of which 22% is Liquid Methane that is 1045 ton, and 78% is Liquid Oxygen which is 3744 ton.
Once people wondered, why Elon Musk said he would use the Moon as the base to develop Mars. Why don’t he directly shoot the rockets from earth to Mars and why establish another base on the Moon. If we know the problem of propellent, we can know the reason of his changes, not because of 6 months of journey or 26 months a chance to shoot up. It is because the limitation of minerals of Liquid Methane on earth. One of the reasons of solving this problem is to change the energy to solar energy or trying to find such mineral on the Moon.
How it affects the original Mars landing project? We have to wait for the official announcement of NASA. SpaceX is just a contractor of NASA, and they have the right to change to Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic or whatsoever, but others of course cannot compare with SpaceX. NASA can also shoot on their own without relying on others, but their most powerful rocket is Saturn 5, apparently outperformed by Space X. It is impossible for NASA to have co-operation with other countries for no others can chase up SpaceX.
Mars project will be postponed for 5 to 7 years. The original landing year is 2030, hopefully 2029, but now postponed. That is around 2035 to 2040. There comes an interesting question, will China chase up and land on Mars first. The schedule of China is to send astronauts to the Moon on 2030 and to Mars before 2050, to align with the 2049 centennial of the People’s Republic of China. So just watch and see if there are any changes.