Posted on 10/15/2016 9:11:29 PM PDT by aquila48
NASA's path to Mars -- and Boeing's -- looks anything but straightforward compared to SpaceX's. Image source: NASA Opens a New Window. .
SpaceX wants to go to Mars -- by now, that's common knowledge Opens a New Window. . But did you know that Boeing (NYSE: BA) wants to go to Mars, too Opens a New Window. ? And that it plans to get there before SpaceX?
It's true. And now, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg has thrown down the gauntlet before SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, declaring: "I'm convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket."
High hopes
Boeing's CEO made this declaration while speaking at The Atlantic's "What's Next?" tech conference in Chicago last week, and it came as a bit of a surprise -- mathematically speaking.
You see, whereas SpaceX plans to send humans to Mars on its own, Boeing's intention is to provide the technology NASA needs to put U.S. astronauts on the Red Planet. Accordingly, Boeing's plan depends entirely on when NASA itself intends to go to Mars -- and last we heard, that wasn't likely to happen before 2033 Opens a New Window. (with arrival scheduled for 2034).
Compare this toElon Musk's plan for Mars Opens a New Window. : Earlier this year, at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Musk promised to put an unmanned Dragon 2 spaceship on Mars by 2018 -- then follow that up with a manned mission to Mars departing in 2024, and landing in 2025.
2034 minus 2025 equals SpaceX beating Boeing to Mars by nine years.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
Yeah, Boeing secret agents probably sabotaged the last SpaceX launch.
oh
Boeing can do anything as long as they get favorable tax rates and incentives....the way my state of Washington bends over backwards to “keep” Boeing in Washington is obscene, because few other companies and its workers get that special treatment..
Shouldn’t NASA be leading the Mission to Mars? Trouble with corporations is that they share their secrets and outsource their technology all over the world. Let’s go back to when things were good and working and keep this technology in the U.S.A.
Boeing beating SpaceX to Mars?
I’ll believe it when see it.
So it took a billionaire determined to get to Mars to finally bring real plans for space exploration back to life. If nothing else, I credit Elon Musk for that.
Center fuel tank?
That is indeed true. I don't see what's so admirable about corporations who, in the pursuit of enlightened capitalism and Randian profiteering, will sell their technology to China, Saudi Arabia or ISIS.
Why don't you give Von Braun some credit, since he came up with the plan to go to Mars back in the 1940s and anyone who plans on going to Mars will be following it? Von Braun was going to use two Saturn Vs to reach Mars by the 1980s. But Nixon canned it.
None of them are going to Mars.
“But Nixon canned it.” As he did many other aspects of the US space program.
And obummer drove a stake in its heart.
China will beat both of them to Mars.
Why don't you give Von Braun some credit, since he came up with the plan to go to Mars back in the 1940s and anyone who plans on going to Mars will be following it? Von Braun was going to use two Saturn Vs to reach Mars by the 1980s. But Nixon canned it.
I give a lot of credit to Musk, and Von Braun, but even Von Braun was a government employee, first with Germany and then the US, standing on the shoulders of others.
If we really want to give credit to private individuals who brought about the space age, on top of that list, with no one even close to second place, is Robert Goddard.
Robert Goddard was a man who was the first scientist and inventor who made significant contributions to rocketry, and he did so largely with his own money on his own time. He only got a few government grants, most of his money came from the Guggenheim family or from his own. In 1919 he wrote a grant proposal that included a proposal to launch a rocket to the moon with a payload of flash powder that would cause a brilliant explosion which could be seen from telescopes on Earth. He was ridiculed in the press for this, an subsequently never persued publicity for his work again. This led to him not being very well known in the present day. But he continued working up until his death in 1945. He has been granted 214 patents , the majority of which were granted after his death. He was even granted patents in separate but related fields. For instance, he recognized the problem of supplying power to a machine in a zero gravity, no oxygen environment, and invented solar cells. It is safe to say that Musk, Von Braun, or anyone else can launch a spacecraft without using his work.
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