With Mars In Mind, Will Trump Put Moon On Back Burner?

ORLANDO, Florida–At his second inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, President Donald Trump vowed that the U.S. would “pursue our manifest destiny into the stars” and that astronauts would plant the U.S. flag on the planet Mars by the end of the decade.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, now a close ally and “special government employee” in the Trump administration, gave an enthusiastic thumbs up after the remark.

“Can you imagine how awesome it will be to have American astronauts plant the flag on another planet for the first time?” Musk said at a post-inauguration rally in Washington. Transporting humans to Mars is the primary focus behind SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket, collectively referred to as Starship.

The highlighting of Mars in a presidential inauguration speech–and an omission of any mention of lunar missions–has the space industry abuzz about whether Trump 2.0 may forego existing programs meant to bring Americans back to the Moon’s surface. Musk himself has called the Moon “a distraction” in posts on X, which he also owns.

As space-centric executives and aficionados gathered Jan. 27-30 for a suite of conferences here, the question of whether Trump’s return to the White House would prompt a pivot to Mars was top of mind. Trump himself signed the Artemis Accords in 2017 to bring U.S. and allied astronauts back to the Moon in 2024. But Musk’s influence, and the allure of the Red Planet’s scientific and strategic value, could mean a shift in priorities.

The Artemis mission to return astronauts to the Moon’s surface is several years behind schedule. It is estimated to cost around $93 billion between 2012-2025, not including $42 billion in formulation and development costs over the past dozen years, George Scott, then-NASA’s acting inspector general, told lawmakers in January 2024. Analysts note that unless NASA receives a sizable budget increase, a greater focus on the Red Planet may come at the Moon’s expense.

At the Space Mobility Conference Jan. 28 and the SpaceCom Conference Jan. 29-30, stakeholders sought to address audience concerns.

Every four years or so, a new administration brings a fresh wave of uncertainty into government programs, said Kirk Shireman, Lockheed Martin’s vice president of Human Exploration Systems. He spent more than three decades at NASA, including five as manager of the International Space Station.

This time, it’s a bit different, with Trump’s involvement in the lunar program since its launch, he said during a Jan. 29 panel here.

“President Trump actually signed the Artemis II hatch. His signature is on there right now,” Shireman said. “So I think we should stay the course.”

Government and industry leaders in Orlando largely agreed that any technology developed to reach Mars would require testing on the Moon first. Mars is about 140 million mi. from Earth, and a flight there is expected to take about six months. Meanwhile, the Moon is 238,900 mi. away, and would only take a few days to reach.

When NASA first developed the “Moon to Mars” objectives, the plan was always to use the Moon as a testbed before projecting forward to Mars, Steve Clarke, vice president of Astrobotic who spent more than two decades at NASA, noted during the Jan. 29 panel discussion.

“I still think that’s the case, even with the clear political statements that have been made about going to Mars,” he said.

While reaching the Moon may not seem as “glamorous” as finding life on Mars, it is a crucial mission, David Jungkind, chief revenue officer at space technology company Advanced Space, said during a Jan. 28 panel discussion.

He compared it to the criticality of the 1942 Battle of Midway during World War II, when the U.S. secured its first major victory against Japan and paved the way for an offensive in the Pacific Theater.

“Let’s be honest, we needed Midway,” Jungkind noted.

It is also critical from a national security standpoint. China, which the U.S. considers to be a peer adversary in the space domain, wants to build new cislunar infrastructure that would support lunar exploration. Cislunar space–the region between Earth and the Moon–has become increasingly contested for both space exploration and defense.

Industry leaders warned at the conference against forgoing that territory while competition heats up.

“I’m terrified of the thought that things can come out of cislunar and we’ll have no idea,” said Erik Daehler, vice president of defense, satellites and spacecraft systems at Sierra Space.

“It’s like not even understanding the deep ocean and blue water battles, and all of a sudden there’s U-boats and you didn’t plan [for] them,” he said during the panel discussion.

While Musk calls the Moon a distraction, in Daehler’s view, it’s the opposite.

“I do think Mars is a distraction. It’s too resource-intensive,” he said. “Let’s focus on the things that are close to us, and [that] resource wise, we can achieve in the near term.”