“Most entertaining outcome is most likely,” said multibillionaire Elon Musk in a Saturday X post.
Musk, who owns X and is the CEO of both Tesla and Space X, has been engaged in a social media spat with President Donald Trump, who until just recently was his ally. Since NASA has become increasingly reliant on SpaceX for it’s missions, the rift has left people wondering what the future of U.S. space travel might look like.
It wasn’t exactly clear what Musk was referring to in his post. It could have referred to his relationship with Trump, the space program, electric vehicles made by Tesla – any number of things.
Trump threatened in one social media post to end Musk’s government contracts. In a Thursday X post Musk threatened that “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”
However, he has since deleted that post. In fact, his Saturday posted were heavily SpaceX-related.
Currently, NASA is working on the Artemis program, focused on exploration of the moon.
“For Artemis III, the first crewed return to the lunar surface in over 50 years, NASA is working with SpaceX to develop the company’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS),” said a November press release form the space agency, highlighting its reliance on SpaceX. “Newly updated artist’s conceptual renders show how Starship HLS will dock with NASA’s Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit, then two Artemis crew members will transfer from Orion to Starship and descend to the surface.”
According to NPR, the SpaceX Starship would bring humans to the moon for the first time since 1972 if those plans move forward. However, it said that “Starship has already experienced multiple launch and reentry failures, making it unlikely to meet NASA’s goal of landing on the Moon in 2027 as part of the Artemis 3 mission.”
Musk actually seems more interested in getting a crew to Mars than revisiting the moon. In a post on X, he even called the moon mission a “distraction.” NPR said that Jared Isaacman, a close ally of Musk and his pick to serve as the space agency administrator, promised to get NASA working on a crewed mission to Mars, but Trump withdrew his nomination shortly after Musk left the government.
Without the SpaceX Starship, there will need to be “significant” changes to the SpaceX program, Tim Farrar, president of TMF Associates, a space consultancy cited by NPR.
While the Starship has yet to land on the moon, the Dragon spacecraft Musk mentioned in his deleted post have already been workhorses for NASA. Just last week, the space agency marked the return of SpaceX’s 32nd commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for NASA. A Dragon craft also brought home NASA astronauts who were stranded for months after making their way to the International Space Station in a Boeing craft that experience technical difficulties. Right now, it is NASA’s only means to the space station.
“The U.S. has become increasingly reliant on the company for critical and sometimes secret space operations,” NPR said.
Lori Garver served as deputy administrator of NASA when former President Barack Obama was in office and she called Trump and Musk’s threats “really disconcerting,” per NPR.
BryceTech, a private analytics firm, estimates that SpaceX launched 83% of all spacecraft worldwide last year. If the Trump and Musk feud does result in an end to SpaceX making Dragon capsules available to NASA, the agency “might have to revert to relying on Russia to provide Soyuz rockets for transport, as it did for nine years following the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011 until the first crewed SpaceX mission in 2020,” said NPR.
Still, the outlet said that neither Trump nor Musk could easily act on their threats. Garver also doesn’t think NASA will cancel the Artemis project if it loses access to SpaceX technology.
POLITICO said that reduced influence from Musk might even have a positive impact on the moon mission.
“Elon was the main reason for the fork in the road for NASA’s human exploration plans,” said Clayton Swope, a former congressional adviser on space, per the outlet. “With his exodus from D.C., there’s a good chance NASA will refocus back to the moon with the plan: moon then Mars.”