Elon Musk laid out plans for Mars. SpaceX production will outstrip Boeing and Airbus
Over the weekend, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gave a talk about making life multi-planetary. He wants to go to Mars—soon.
Who wants to be a Martian? It’s a question that might need answering in your lifetime.
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk outlined his plans to make life multi-planetary by sending Earthlings to Mars. The scale of his ambitions is mind-blowing.
Over the weekend, Musk presented to SpaceX employees at Starbase, Texas. (Starbase is a literal city run by SpaceX.) The goal of the talk was to describe the steps required to bring SpaceX technology and, ultimately, humans to Mars. The talk also provided investors with a fascinating glimpse into Musk’s space company.
A civilization on Mars is “going to be incredibly important for the long-term survival of civilization," said Musk. “Then we go beyond Mars, ultimately, to the move, maybe asteroid belt…and ultimately, to other star systems…making science fiction no longer fiction."
To achieve that, humanity needs rapidly reusable rockets, Musk added—a lot of them.
Starship is SpaceX’s fully reusable launch system in testing today. It’s the most powerful rocket ship ever built by humans, standing some 400 feet tall on a launchpad. SpaceX can make a Starship every two to three weeks. That’s an amazing tidbit in and of itself. Musk, however, wants to produce 1,000 a year.
Boeing and Airbus delivered 1,114 planes combined in 2024 and are expected to deliver roughly 1,400 in 2025, according to FactSet. Most of those, however, are 737-sized jets. One Starship is bigger than a Boeing 747. SpaceX “will be making, at some point, probably, as many Starships for Mars as Boeing and Airbus make [jets]," added Musk.
Humans can launch missions to Mars every two years when planetary orbits align. The next window comes in late 2026. Musk wants to hit that window—sending something to Mars in a matter of months. To reach that goal, SpaceX has to perfect catching the top and lower half of the Starship rockets, improve the rocket engines and heat shield, and pioneer in-orbit refueling of a rocket ship. (Musk said in-orbit refueling testing can start in 2026.)
The list of tasks to complete looks daunting. SpaceX has tested its Starship nine times. Each test has had some level of problems. No one at SpaceX, however, seems to be bothered by testing hiccups. For them, it’s all part of the process of perfecting the tech.
Musk even has a plan to pay for all the testing and building required. Starlink is SpaceX’s profitable space-based Wi-Fi service that can essentially fund Mars development. Starlink represents roughly 80% of the current $350 billion value of SpaceX, says Rainmaker Securities CEO Glen Anderson. Through Friday trading, Boeing and Airbus, including debt, were worth a combined $340 billion.
Rainmaker facilitates trades in privately held companies such as SpaceX. It estimates Starlink has more than five million subscribers globally.
Eventually, Musk wants to ship one million tons of cargo to Mars every launch window. That’s roughly 4,500 Statues of Liberty every two years.
Thousands of rockets, sending millions of tons of cargo to build a city on another planet that’s capable of supporting human life sounds like science fiction indeed. It might not be that way for much longer.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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