Musk Says SpaceX Could Send ‘Tens of Thousands’ to the Moon Within a Decade

Elon Musk says SpaceX could eventually support ‘thousands, or even tens of thousands’ of people living on the Moon within the next decade, part of a sweeping new timeline he laid out in an interview with Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

SpaceX hopes to return astronauts to the Moon within two to three years, Musk said, before moving to open lunar access beyond government-trained astronauts to ordinary people. He acknowledged the scale of the ambition is a significant leap from where space travel currently stands — only a small number of people have ever reached the Moon, all during NASA’s Apollo programme over five decades ago.

Central to the plan is Starship, SpaceX’s large reusable spacecraft built for missions beyond Earth orbit and designed to carry cargo and passengers. The vehicle remains in testing and has not yet completed a crewed flight.

Musk also addressed Mars, describing it as a far tougher challenge than the Moon given the distance and travel duration involved. He predicted SpaceX could land its first humans on the planet within five years, with thousands more following over the subsequent decade — reiterating his long-held view that a Mars settlement could help humanity become a multi-planetary species.

Such predictions have a history of slipping. Musk forecast a Mars landing within a decade more than ten years ago, and in 2017 SpaceX said private passengers would fly around the Moon as early as 2018 — a mission that never materialised. Musk also used the interview to flag a newer ambition for the company: launching its first artificial intelligence satellites as part of a broader push into space-based computing infrastructure.