A billionaire space executive has joined the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Sam Altman in believing that work on the moon and beyond may no longer belong to the distant future. According to Fortune, Voyager Technologies founder and CEO Dylan Taylor says off-world jobs could emerge much sooner than many people expect.
Here's what to know
Taylor told Fortune that spaceflight is nearing a new stage, shifting away from brief missions and toward a reality wherein living and working off Earth is routine. In his view, the next milestone is a lunar outpost, which he expects could arrive in the early 2030s.
"Humans will definitely be living and working in space," Taylor said. "... The next step would be the moon. That'll happen in the 2030s — probably early 2030s."
While the International Space Station has been continuously occupied for nearly 26 years, Taylor sees a much wider labor force eventually taking part. Those roles could include resource extraction and power grid construction as well as jobs related to orbital data centers.
"You're not going to be able to program Optimus to do everything on the moon," Taylor told Fortune. "You're going to have to have humans to figure it out."
As for Mars, Taylor said it presents far greater obstacles because of distance and radiation exposure, making it a fallback option in case something catastrophic happens on Earth.
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More background
Taylor has been active in space investing, including in his support for Space Adventures in 2007 and his early involvement with Relativity Space, Fortune reported.
He founded Space for Humanity in 2017 to help people gain access to commercial spaceflight, and he started Voyager in 2019.
As Fortune noted, that is what turned Taylor into a billionaire. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2025 with a $3.8 billion valuation. Today, Voyager has multiple NASA contracts and is building a replacement for the aging ISS.
Taylor has also traveled to space himself, flying on a Blue Origin mission in 2021.
What's being done?
Private companies are working on the infrastructure needed to make space occupation possible. Voyager is among them, focusing on systems for the post-ISS period.
"We'll have a moon base, people living and working on the moon," Taylor said. "You'll be able to look up at the moon and see lights on the moon."
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