Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, recently boasted that he will land five uncrewed Starship rockets on the surface of Mars in 2026. If all of those landing attempts are successful, he intends to follow up with the first crewed expedition to Mars by 2028.
Former President Donald Trump endorsed the plan, urging Musk to get people on Mars by the end of his prospective second term. And why not? The sight of human beings walking on the Red Planet would be a tremendous capstone on one of the most unusual and controversial political careers in history.
Two problems must be solved before SpaceX lands anything on Mars, one technical, one bureaucratic.
Starship has to prove several capabilities before Musk sends it to Mars. It has to launch, go into orbit, and then soft-land back on Earth. It also must be refueled in low Earth orbit before being sent into deep space. And the rocket ship can only prove these capabilities by repeated test flights.
Incidentally, SpaceX is under contractual obligation to provide a lunar lander version of Starship. NASA’s plans for the Artemis III mission are to have astronauts transfer from the Orion spacecraft to the Starship Human Landing System in lunar orbit and travel to and from the moon’s surface. SpaceX plans an uncrewed version of a Starship trip to the moon before it attempts to send people there.
NASA would like to see the Artemis III mission happen in 2026; the same year Musk wants to send a flotilla of Starships to Mars.
Every Starship deep space mission, whether to the Moon or Mars, will require several fuel tanker Starships to top off its tanks before proceeding on. SpaceX would have to launch and land many Starships in 2026 if it means to satisfy both Musk’s and Trump’s Mars ambitions and NASA’s mandate for the moon,
The idea that SpaceX would be able to develop Starship into an operational vehicle by 2026 seems ambitious. However, the company, all things being equal, should be able to accomplish that feat in a longer time frame.
However, all things are not equal where Starship’s development is concerned. SpaceX has run into a government bureaucracy problem that has slowed its super rocket’s development to a crawl.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which has been the main government agency handling the regulation of space launches such as the Starship test flights, has aroused the ire of Musk. The government body has not only imposed fines for what it claims to have been violations during two test flights in 2023 but has also delayed the fifth flight of SpaceX’s super rocket until November at the earliest. Musk claims that the Starship has been ready to go since August. The FAA claims that the delay is for “safety reasons.”
Musk is having none of it. He has sent a letter to Congress disputing the fines and claiming that they are frivolous. He has announced his intention to sue the FAA for what he calls “regulatory overreach.” The SpaceX CEO has called on FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker to resign.
Clearly something is amiss. Has the FAA gotten a sudden case of sclerosis when it comes to overseeing SpaceX’s Starship test regime? Or is something darker going on?
Last year, Liz Peek noted that the Biden administration has declared all-out war on Musk, irked that he has turned X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, into a free speech zone. Against that backdrop, the idea that the White House is slow-walking Starship’s development is not outside the boundaries of believability.
If Biden has it in for Musk, he pursues the vendetta at the risk of America’s national security. Every moment that the next American moon landing is delayed makes more likely the nightmarish possibility that China, which plans its own moonwalks by 2030, will beat America back to the moon. The irresponsibility is breathtaking.
Congress should step in, surely. But also, Greg Autry, author of “Red Moon Rising,” and Brett Mecum have a simple solution: Elect Trump to a second term so that Musk has an ally rather than an enemy in the White House.
Will a second Trump presidency mean American boots on both the lunar and Martian surfaces by the end of his term? Maybe. Maybe not. But having the author of the Artemis program back in power makes the prospect far more likely.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.