This mission will be privately funded. Yes, SpaceX does receive quite a lot of money from NASA, but that is in payment for useful missions on Falcon 9 and with Dragon capsules. SpaceX is spending their own money, including profits from NASA missions and from Starlink, to find the Starship program.
With that being said, NASA is spending some money on Starship, but that is specifically for its development into the HLS moon lander, not for Mars missions.
They currently have ~0 Starship launches into low earth orbit and would need something like 10 to even try for Mars. Seems they better pick up the pace.
I've always assumed the Mars talk was just cover for producing space weapon transport ships. Trillions of $$$ going into visiting a dead planet is bonkers if real. Humans can't even survive simulated planets in bio-domes without someone becoming unhinged and endangering the mission. If the goal is human survival if an asteroid or super volcano great filter came our way then a large ring ship with artificial gravity makes more sense to me as it can be moved out of the way of hazards, not that we would ever be able to build such a thing.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 34.8 ms ] threadDOGE is supposed to be reducing the national debt. Spending money on Mars missions won't reduce the debt.
With that being said, NASA is spending some money on Starship, but that is specifically for its development into the HLS moon lander, not for Mars missions.
Oh, wait... focus...
My guess is he wants people to focus on something besides Starship's recent explosion. (If not some other recent bad news...)