With a long-term mission of attempting to land on Mars, Elon Musk began to shift his focus from Mars to the Moon. On February 8 this year, Elon Musk shared some news on X about establishing a “self-growing” human city on the moon. With a projected 10-year waiting period Musk claimed to shift SpaceX’s focus from a landing on Mars to a lunar city.

According to Musk, civilizing the moon would be faster than attempting to accomplish the Mars mission, as Mars only becomes accessible every 26 months, when the two planets align to allow travel. Compared to a moon trip that would take approximately two days. “The moon would establish a foothold beyond Earth quickly, to protect life against risk of a natural or manmade disaster on earth,” Musk said.

The change came into perspective after years of pushed back landings on Mars, which was the original focus since 2016, before exploration was pushed further into 2018, 2022, and into 2025 with a new update of an estimated deployment of Tesla engineered starships to Mars in 2026. From Wall Street, Musk told SpaceX’s investors that it would prioritize going to the moon and Mars at the same time. A lunar landing is projected by March of 2027.