Daniel Smith Interim Head of Operations - Content Hub & GAU 11:28, 12 Feb 2026 Space baby ban, curing selfish jerks, how close we came to not making it, and runaway black holes are real - all this and more in our latest weird science newsletter In a recent social media post justifying the pivot, Musk suggested a Moon city could be achievable in under a decade, while a Martian city would take over 20 years. He's also talked about beginning Mars city‑building efforts within five to seven years, but says the "overriding priority" is securing civilisation’s future as fast as possible, and the Moon is faster. ‌ The idea of a lunar catapult dates back to Cold War‑era space settlement studies. On the airless Moon, with low gravity and no weather, an electromagnetic launch track could, in theory, fire cargo - raw materials, fuel or satellites - into space without rockets. Despite the upsides, the plan does present several technological headaches from building multi‑kilometre‑long tracks in abrasive lunar dust to generating and storing huge bursts of power, keeping delicate satellites from being shaken to bits, and steering payloads precisely into the right orbits. There’s also the small matter of getting all the kit to the Moon in the first place. Space‑based data centres would bathe in continuous sunlight (especially in certain lunar regions and high Earth orbits), dodging Earth’s land, cooling, and grid constraints. Article continues below A private space computing platform would give Musk’s AI ambitions room to grow far beyond terrestrial limits - though it raises big questions about regulation and access. Follow Daily Mirror: