SpaceX, with its rapidly expanding squadron of Starship rockets and super-capsules, looks poised to dominate the creation of humanity’s first base camp on the Moon.
As it ramps up producing Starship upper stages that can double as Moon-orbiting space stations or as spectacular lunar resorts, SpaceX is positioned to speed past NASA’s plans for Spartan astronaut habitats on the orb’s South Pole.
NASA’s “lunar surface habitat concepts are currently in early conceptual stages or pre-formulation,” Corinne Beckinger, a NASA representative based at the Marshall Space Flight Center, told me in an interview.
Next-generation Starships will be colossal, mobile habitats that can host up to 100 explorers during the trip to the Moon, and after touching down around its ancient impact craters, SpaceX says in its Starship Users Guide.
Elon Musk, chief designer of Starship, predicted during a recent gathering at his Starbase launch center that a caravan of these spaceships could give rise to a new branch of human civilization across SpaceX’s first Moon base.
“Ultimately I think we want to build a Moon Base Alpha,” Musk mused, “and have a permanently occupied base on the Moon.” An arc of Starships would form the perimeter of this Moon outpost, and travellers to the enclave would be shuttled aboard a fleet of Starships that continuously fly between space stations in orbit around the Earth and around the Moon, he said.
Part of the seed funding for SpaceX’s Moonshot versions of the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria is coming from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
NASA has commissioned the first two Moon-bound Starships under a spaceflight-as-a-service contract, and is paying SpaceX $2.89 billion to first conduct a robotically piloted demonstration flight – with no humans aboard – and then to launch a second Starship to ferry a pair of Artemis III astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon’s polar sector for a seven-day jaunt – now scheduled for the second half of 2026.
After Starship returns the moonwalkers to their hovering Orion spacecraft, SpaceX is free to fly these first two Starships as commercial space stations circling the Moon, or transform them into haut monde getaways that could be open to independent explorers, says Beckinger, who is part of NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) group, which is overseeing the American return to the Moon.
In a presentation to the International Astronautical Congress, during a meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan late last year, the leaders of NASA’s HLS team suggested that the 2020s sequence of Artemis flights will stun the world.
“Artemis missions will see the agency’s powerful Space Launch System rocket launch four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft for their multi-day journey to lunar orbit,” they said. The Artemis III flight “will see two crew members transfer from Orion to the SpaceX Starship HLS for the final leg of their journey to the surface of the Moon.”
These two NASA spacefarers – including the first woman ever to touch down on the Moon – will “conduct a series of moonwalks to take pictures and video” as they explore the mysterious pole, with the Earth arcing above the horizon.
“When the surface expedition is complete, the Starship HLS will ascend from the lunar surface, carrying the two astronauts back … to reunite with their crewmates in Orion. At this point in Artemis III, the Starship HLS mission is complete,” the NASA team explained.
At that point, Beckinger says, SpaceX has complete freedom to deploy this Starship anywhere it deems best.
Beckinger’s confirmation of SpaceX retaining control over this Starship is all-important because NASA’s Science Mission Directorate appeared to call for the destruction of this spacecraft upon the completion of the Artemis III mission.
While soliciting innovative space-tech experiments as part of its Artemis III Deployed Instruments Program, the NASA Science Directorate, in an August 2023 document, included an astonishing command for SpaceX to cast away this Starship upon completion of this Artemis mission.
After shuttling the Artemis III Moon explorers back to their Orion capsule, the Directorate stated: “Starship will be disposed of in a location that neither poses harm to nor interferes with NASA lunar orbit missions, vehicles, or assets of historical value and will comply with applicable planetary protection regulations to ensure a safe disposal of the vehicle.”
“Basically, they are saying that this Starship would be jettisoned in space,” says a longtime planetary scientist who extensively collaborates with NASA, and therefore asked not to be identified.
But Beckinger’s reassurances on SpaceX’s sole right to determine the disposition of its Starships after completing the Artemis missions supersedes the earlier Directorate directive.
SpaceX might opt to christen this Starship as the first celestial castle in its Moon citadel, to host would-be aeronauts from around the world in an expansion of its space tourism operations.
NASA is commissioning another Starship, under a $1.15 billion agreement, to rendezvous in orbit around the Moon with its Artemis IV crew, which will blast off on a Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule in 2028. This Starship “is designed to deliver four astronauts to the surface where they can then use pre-placed habitats and rovers at the southern pole area to live for up to 33 days before returning to the lander” and ascending back to the Orion, says the NASA Landing System team.
Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander will meet up with the next NASA contingent of astronauts – in 2029’s Artemis V mission – and speed two of them to the southern tip of the Moon’s axis of rotation.
NASA has never fully explained its rationale for relying on two parallel sets of rockets and capsules for each Artemis mission to deliver a total of eight astronauts to the lunar surface over the next five years, but that strategy will require astronomical budgets, according to NASA Inspector General Paul Martin.
Martin testified before the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology last year that each launch of the Space Launch System and Orion capsule will cost $4.1 billion “for at least the first four Artemis missions.”
“Relying on such an expensive single-use, heavy-lift rocket system will, in our judgment, inhibit if not derail NASA’s ability to sustain its long-term human exploration goals for the Moon and Mars,” Martin warned.
Altogether, the Inspector General added, “NASA is projected to spend $93 billion on the Artemis effort from FY 2012 through FY 2025.”
“NASA continues to use a cost-plus contracting structure for the SLS, Orion, and Ground Systems even though the programs have experienced years of delays and billions of dollars in cost increases,” he told the Congressional Space Committee.
That means Boeing, the prime contractor for the Space Launch System, has absolutely no incentive to emulate SpaceX’s remarkable advances in developing fully reusable rockets like the Starship to radically slash launch costs. Rather, the core stage of NASA’s SLS rocket, with its incredible RS-25 engines derived from the American Space Shuttle, is jettisoned into the Atlantic Ocean following every liftoff.
Back at SpaceX’s headquarters in California, its leading aerospace engineers have sketched out their vision for Starships to spearhead the first great human settlement on the Moon, in a fascinating overview they co-authored and published.
“Crewed Starships will have on the order of 1100 m3 forward space (most of which will be pressurized for human habitation),” they say – more habitable space than across the entire International Space Station.
These elites in SpaceX’s inner circle suggest that when they begin launching Moon missions independent of NASA, “These first crewed Starships will likely each have about 10-20 total people onboard.”
Circles of Starships, they project, will form the core of Moon Base Alpha.
With the capability to transport over 100 metric tons of cargo on each Starship, they add, these cosmic capsules could also speed brigades of intelligent robots to the lunar surface – to construct landing pads, science labs and other components of a proto-cosmopolis.
“Humans will likely live on the Starship for the first few years until additional habitats are constructed,” connected to their friends back on Earth, and plugged into the Interplanetary Internet, via rings of Starlink satellites that Starships could deploy surrounding the Moon.
During his Starbase talk, Musk said SpaceX will build half a dozen Starship boosters and ships this year, but added he foresees skyrocketing production rates ahead, when his “giant Starship factory” opens.
“We’ll be able to output a massive number of ships,” destined first for utopian enclaves on the Moon and later on Mars, the SpaceX visionary predicted. “So it’s surreal but it’s real.”
