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SpaceX eyes multiple Starship lunar landings before first NASA Moon mission
SpaceX Director Nick Cummings says that the company could potentially attempt multiple uncrewed Starship lunar landings before the first attempt at landing NASA astronauts on the Moon.
In April 2020, NASA announced the first commercial contract recipients under its new Human Landing System (HLS) program, awarding almost $1 billion in an uneven split between Dynetics, Blue Origin’s “National Team”, and SpaceX. While an undeniable boon for Dynetics, SpaceX’s inclusion arguably came as the biggest surprise, marking NASA’s first serious investment in Starship – the company’s next-generation, fully-reusable launch vehicle.
NASA’s goal: develop one or more competing human-rated Moon landers capable of landing astronauts on the lunar surface and safely returning them to an Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit. Towards that end, the space agency awarded Blue Origin’s “National Team” (including Draper, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman) $567 million to develop a massive and complex three-stage system, using Blue Origin’s conceptual Blue Moon lander for the final descent stage. Dynetics received $253 million to build a slightly simple single-stage lander, while SpaceX received $135 million to work on a single-stage Starship-derived vehicle.
It’s never been entirely clear what returns NASA expects from its initial ~$970 million investment – no trivial sum. It’s also unclear why there is such a discrepancy between the three rewards. Regardless, as of October 2020, all three competitors have successfully passed what NASA describes as a certification baseline review (CBR), laying out explicit deliverables (“acceptance criteria and products”).*
*As a side-note, if the three contracts NASA awarded involve the same deliverables, the space agency’s first HLS awards serve as yet another reminder that SpaceX’s competitors are almost inconceivably inefficient – almost 2x cheaper than Dynetics and more than 4x cheaper than Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, et al.
Regardless, one thing is abundantly clear: whether or not NASA’s first phase of HLS rewards anticipated it, SpaceX is the only provider performing actual integrated tests with full-scale Starship prototypes. Since NASA’s April 30th award, SpaceX has successfully completed two hop tests with two separate full-scale Starships, powered by a single off-center Raptor engine that may already serve as a real-world demonstration for a strategy SpaceX could use to gently land Starships on the Moon.
In an intriguing change of pace, NASA says that it will ultimately downselect to two of its three prospective providers, whereas past messaging has heavily implied that more than one winner was extremely unlikely. The space agency now wants to make that decision no earlier than Spring (i.e. April) 2021 with the intention of awarding contracts for demonstration flights from both providers: one to fly in 2024 and the other in 2025.
Meanwhile, over the last several months, Dynetics and Blue Origin have made significant noise over their respective reveals of what essentially amount to toy-like mockups of their proposed Moon lander systems. Blue Origin is technically making good progress testing Blue Moon’s BE-7 engine, but that’s the full extent of known hardware in work between both the National Team and Dynetics. SpaceX, on the other hand, appears to be assembling some kind of Lunar Starship mockup out of real hardware, including an off-spec steel nose and – potentially – one of two functional, flight-proven Starship prototypes. The company has also built and tested no less than 39 full-scale Raptor engine prototypes in the last ~18 months.
Ultimately, all three providers have now confirmed that in the event of winning flight test contracts, they are explicitly planning at least one uncrewed Moon landing before attempting to deliver NASA astronauts to and from the lunar surface. If NASA manages to secure future HLS funding from Congress, the next several years are bound to be jam-packed with lunar spaceflight development and exploration.
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.
The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.
The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel
The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.
Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.
A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.
The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.
Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.
Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.
There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.
The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Sunday to remind everyone that the Roadster’s true meaning is not about company growth or adding dollars to shareholders’ pockets. Sometimes, you just do things because you can.
Following the Roadster’s epic unveiling event last Thursday, skeptics and critics of the company or the project itself came out to say that the vehicle is a pointless project because it is not geared toward growing the company, delivering supreme margins for profitability, nor does it contribute to the big picture of Artificial/Super Intelligence.
But that’s just the thing: Roadster is not meant to be some shareholder dream; it’s meant to be a vehicle that people buy just because it is something awesome, unique, and the first of its kind.
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
Musk had to remind those who are skeptical about the Roadster’s importance to the company mission that while it is not a major contributor to Tesla’s long-term goals, it is something that is being built just because it can be:
“Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value. The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power, and mass to space. And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow. But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.”
Musk has said on many occasions that Optimus would be the project that would make up the vast majority of Tesla’s value in the coming years.
Robotics will be a major focus of Tesla over the coming years, especially as Musk believes Optimus will enable work to be optional for humans and will enable what he calls “High Universal Income.”
Optimus and Cybercab will be the vast majority of Tesla’s value.
The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power and mass to space.
And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow.
But Roadster is super cool, so we’re doing it anyway.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2026
Cybercab will be a passive income opportunity for owners, Musk and Tesla have said for a very long time, as a fleet of self-driving vehicles will operate within a ride-hailing Robotaxi service that won’t require a human driver to be present.
Tesla investors are more than enthusiastic about the company’s future projects, at least from a general consensus perspective. However, it is important to note that the Roadster is a fun and cool project that pushes the boundaries of what people thought was possible for an automobile.
What we saw last week was the first true example of a flying car, and despite the backlash about how it might not contribute to Tesla’s grand ambitions, it’s okay to have fun sometimes, too.
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened
Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds everyone about Roadster’s true meaning
SpaceX reveals how its 1 Million AI satellite network will work and prevent space collisions
Tesla Roadster: Three configs, one can fly, 0-60 in 0.8 seconds
