NASA Says 22 Starship Launches Needed for Moon Landing, Musk Disagrees

NASA and SpaceX are debating how many Starship launches it will take to send astronauts back to the Moon. A NASA safety panel recently estimated that 22 launches are needed to fuel a lunar lander in Earth orbit before it can travel to the Moon. That's a lot of rockets. Elon Musk quickly responded on social media, saying the number is 'way too high' and that it will be more like 6 to 8. The disagreement highlights the uncertainty in the Artemis program, NASA's effort to return humans to the lunar surface.

So why does this matter to you? Each Starship launch is expensive and time-consuming. More launches mean higher costs for NASA—and taxpayers—and a greater chance of delays. The goal is to land astronauts on the Moon by 2028, but if it takes 22 launches to fuel one lunar mission, the schedule could slip. SpaceX is working to increase its launch rate, but even at twice-weekly launches, fueling a depot could take months. That could push the Moon landing further into the future.

The catch is that no one knows for sure. Fuel can boil off in space, and transferring propellant between spacecraft is tricky. NASA is using current Starship performance to estimate, but things could change. Musk's optimism is based on improvements to Starship that haven't been proven yet. NASA is trying to help SpaceX and Blue Origin succeed, but the number of launches remains a key unknown. For now, the answer is somewhere between 6 and 22—and that uncertainty could affect the timeline and cost of returning to the Moon.