Elon Musk’s dream of transporting humans to Mars will become a bigger national priority under US President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, sources said, signaling big changes for NASA’s lunar program and a boost for Musk’s SpaceX.

NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to use SpaceX’s Starship rocket to send humans to the Moon as a testing ground for later missions to Mars, is expected to focus more on the Red Planet under Trump and target missions without crew there this decade, according to four people familiar. with Trump’s nascent space policy agenda.

Targeting Mars with spacecraft built for astronauts is not only more ambitious than focusing on the Moon, but also carries many risks and potentially more expensive.

Musk, who danced on stage at a Trump rally wearing an “Occupy Mars” T-shirt in October, spent $119 million on Trump’s White House bid and managed to elevate space policy to an unusual moment in a presidential transition.

In September, weeks after Musk endorsed Trump, Trump told reporters that the Moon was a “launching pad” for his ultimate goal of reaching Mars.

“At a minimum we’ll get a more realistic plan for Mars, you’ll see that Mars will be a goal,” said Doug Loverro, a space industry consultant who once led NASA’s Human Exploration Unit under Trump . American President from 2017 to 2021.

SpaceX, Musk and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A NASA spokeswoman said it “would not be appropriate to speculate about changes with the new administration.”

Plans could still change, the sources added, as Trump’s transition team comes together in the coming weeks.

Trump launched the Artemis program in 2019 during his first term and it was one of the few initiatives maintained under President Joe Biden’s administration. Trump’s space advisers want to revamp a program that they say has languished in their absence, the sources said.

Musk, who also owns electric vehicle maker Tesla opens in a new tab and brain chip startup Neuralink, has made reducing government regulation and cutting red tape another key basis of his support for Trump.

For space, sources say, Musk’s deregulation desires are likely to trigger changes at the Federal Aviation Administration’s commercial space office, whose oversight of private rocket launches has frustrated Musk for slowing development of the SpaceX Starship.

The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NASA under Trump, sources say, is likely to favor fixed-price space contracts that shift more responsibility to private companies and cut back on off-budget programs that have strained Artemis’ budget.

That could cause problems for the only rocket NASA has, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, whose roughly $24 billion development since 2011 has been led by Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Some say canceling the program would be difficult because it would cost thousands of jobs and make the United States even more dependent on SpaceX.

Boeing and Northrop did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk, whose predictions have sometimes proven too ambitious, said in September that SpaceX would land Starship on Mars in 2026 and that a crewed mission would follow in four years. Trump has said at campaign rallies that he has discussed these ideas with Musk.

Many industry experts view this timeline as unlikely.

“Is it possible for Elon to place a spacecraft on the surface of Mars on a one-way mission by the end of Trump’s term? Absolutely, he could certainly do it,” Scott Pace said, the highest-ranking space policy official during Trump’s first term. .

“Is this a manned mission to Mars? No,” Pace added. “You have to walk before you run.”