{"id":36028,"date":"2026-02-10T05:00:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T10:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=36028"},"modified":"2026-02-09T19:58:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:58:55","slug":"elon-musk-bows-to-the-scientific-and-economic-wisdom-of-photog-and-pivots-to-luna-city-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/10\/elon-musk-bows-to-the-scientific-and-economic-wisdom-of-photog-and-pivots-to-luna-city-goal\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk Bows to the Scientific and Economic Wisdom of photog and Pivots to Luna City Goal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last June I wrote a post called Moon Mining<\/a> in which I made a lot of hyperbolic statements about my future as a miner of precious metals on the Moon.\u00a0 But in a more serious vein (no pun intended?) I said, \u201cBut seriously, I think there is a lot more likelihood of the Moon becoming economically useful to humans than Mars.\u00a0 The difference in distance alone makes Mars almost impossibly difficult for manned flights.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Moon on the other hand was reached more than fifty-five years ago by men whose technological capabilities were rudimentary compared to what we have at our disposal today.\u00a0 Imagine what improvements modern computing power and automation could do to make reaching and working on the Moon safer and easier<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s this post from last week, \u201cIt\u2019s Shiny and New<\/a>\u201d where I talk about Luna City.<\/p>\n

And here we are a few days later and this headline appears:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a reversal, SpaceX prioritizes ‘city’ on the moon over Mars project, Musk says<\/a><\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

In the article it says, \u201cElon Musk said on Sunday that SpaceX has shifted its focus to building a \u201cself<\/strong>\u2011growing city<\/strong>\u201d on the moon, which could be achieved in less than 10 years.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SpaceX still intends to start on Musk\u2019s long-held ambition of a city on Mars within five to seven years, he wrote on his X social media platform, \u201cbut the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

What else do I need to say.\u00a0 Elon, there\u2019s no shame in admitting you\u2019re wrong when someone gently reminds you that wisdom is still a higher authority than Midas-like wealth.\u00a0 Well, he\u2019s still relatively young and there\u2019s time for him to learn what\u2019s really important, namely building Luna City and naming the main street Neil Armstrong Blvd.<\/p>\n

Seriously, I was starting to doubt whether he wasn\u2019t just blowing smoke with all the Mars mission talk.\u00a0 That stuff is a generation away.\u00a0 Building and maintaining a permanent Moon base is an achievable goal that will show us whether human habitation beyond the Earth is feasible and profitable.\u00a0 If it isn\u2019t it\u2019s better to learn that from a place where retreat takes a couple of days rather than a year.\u00a0 Trillions of dollars and, more importantly, lives would be saved.<\/p>\n

So, get going Mr. Musk.\u00a0 Sell the boys in Washington a plan to build something like a town on the Moon.\u00a0 You\u2019ll make a whole lot of money and you\u2019ll spark the imagination of a generation of boys whose grandfathers thrilled to the Apollo landings.\u00a0 Just make sure you do a good job on the accounting so it won\u2019t come back to haunt you when the Democrats come back into power.\u00a0 They\u2019re a vindictive bunch and they love to punish people whom they hate and from everything I\u2019ve read they hate you now even more than they hate people like me.\u00a0 And that\u2019s a whole lot of hate anyway you stack it.<\/p>\n

I have to confess I\u2019m actually kind of excited to hear this goal.\u00a0 I think he can get this done.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing Trump would like to have his name involved in it too.\u00a0 That quite a combination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last June I wrote a post called Moon Mining in which I made a lot of hyperbolic statements about my future as a miner of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3545],"tags":[2517,5135,4931,121],"class_list":["post-36028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-science","tag-elon-musk","tag-manned-spaceflight","tag-moon","tag-space-program"],"yoast_head":"\nElon Musk Bows to the Scientific and Economic Wisdom of photog and Pivots to Luna City Goal - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/10\/elon-musk-bows-to-the-scientific-and-economic-wisdom-of-photog-and-pivots-to-luna-city-goal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Elon Musk Bows to the Scientific and Economic Wisdom of photog and Pivots to Luna City Goal - 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