Trump's victory brings Elon Musk closer to his Mars dream

Elon Musk's dream of sending humans to Mars will become a bigger priority under US President-elect Donald Trump, revealing a major change to NASA's Moon program.

NASA's Artemis program aims to use SpaceX's Starship rocket to send humans to the Moon as a foundation for future Mars missions. However, the program is expected to focus more on the Red Planet under Trump and aim for an unmanned mission there this decade, according to a source familiar with the president's space policy, Reuters reported on November 11.

SpaceX's Starship launch system. (Photo: Reuters).

Choosing Mars as a destination with a spacecraft designed to carry astronauts is not only more ambitious than the moon-focused mission, it's also riskier and more expensive. Musk, who danced on stage at a Trump rally in October wearing a 'Colonize Mars' T-shirt , has spent $119 million on Trump's campaign and successfully pushed space policy at an unusual time.

In September, weeks after Musk publicly endorsed Trump, Trump said the moon was just a launching pad for his ultimate goal of reaching Mars . 'At least we'll have a more realistic Mars plan. You'll see Mars become a target ,' said Doug Loverro, a space industry adviser who directed NASA's exploration division when Trump was president from 2017 to 2021.

The plan could still change as Trump's cabinet finalizes its plans in the coming weeks, according to sources. Trump launched the Artemis program in 2019 during his first term, and it is one of the few initiatives that will remain under President Biden. Trump's space advisory team wants to reform the program, which has been seen as weakened in their absence.

Musk, who owns electric car company Tesla and brain chip startup Neuralink, has also made cutting red tape a core part of his support for Trump. For the space industry, Musk's desire to reduce red tape is likely to spur changes at the Federal Aviation Administration's commercial space agency, which oversees private rocket launches and has frustrated Musk by slowing down SpaceX's Starship system.

NASA under Trump will likely favor fixed-price space contracts that give more responsibility to private companies and scale back the cost-hungry programs that have become a burden for Artemis. That could spell trouble for the only rocket NASA has, the Space Launch System (SLS), which has cost $24 billion to develop since 2011. Delaying the program would be difficult, as it would cost thousands of jobs and increase dependence on SpaceX.