THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX scraps idea of converting offshore oil rigs into floating launch platforms — for now.

Elon Musk’s private space company in 2020 bought two deepwater oil rigs it dubbed Phobos and Deimos — after the moons of Mars — with plans to convert them into floating launch platforms.

But those plans have been scratched. The company has sold the rigs, located in Mississippi’s Port of Pascagoula, to undisclosed buyers.

“They were not the right platform,” SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell told reporters after the annual Federal Aviation Administration Commercial Transportation Conference in Washington, D.C., last week. “We really need to fly this vehicle to understand it, to get to know this machine, and then we’ll figure out how we’re going to launch it.”

Assuming Musk’s Mars colonization program begins, he’ll need a lot more launch platforms.