Elon Musk hopes to have Starship ready for a trip to Mars come late 2026. REUTERS Musk has found his mission aligning with Isaacman, the New Jersey tech billionaire who flew on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon last year for the first-ever civilian spacewalk. Isaacman has pushed a trip to Mars as a priority for the Trump administration, with the White House calling for $1 billion in funding for efforts to land on the red planet. SpaceX said it has addressed the issues that made the last two launches a failure, but added that Starship’s initial tests will always be “unpredictable” as they speed their way to developing the perfect rocket. “By putting hardware in a flight environment as frequently as possible, we’re able to quickly learn and execute design changes as we seek to bring Starship online as a fully and rapidly reusable vehicle,” SpaceX said in a lead up to Tuesday’s launch. Filed under