Musk changes course on Mars quest and shoots for moon – again

Moon was a distraction and Mars the goal for billionaire SpaceX chief – could Trump have influenced his U-turn? Barely a year ago, the moon was “a distraction” to Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of SpaceX then fixated on his ludicrously ambitious project to build a self-sustaining city on Mars within 20 years. Why bother returning to the orbiting chunk of rock humanity conquered half a century ago, he reasoned, when the greater prize of the red planet lay tantalizingly in reach for his company’s mighty Starship rockets? Continue reading...

By Richard Luscombe