Better get going - there are other competitors.
Posted on 12/08/2017 7:19:05 AM PST by BenLurkin
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg was speaking on CNBC today when host Jim Cramer asked whether Boeing or SpaceX would "get a man on Mars first."
"Eventually we're going to go to Mars, and I firmly believe the first person that sets foot on Mars will get there on a Boeing rocket," Muilenburg said, according to Fortune.
Boeing is the main contractor for the first stage of NASA's giant Space Launch System , which is designed to launch astronauts on deep-space missions using the space agency's new Orion spacecraft. (United Launch Alliance, Orbital ATK and Aerojet Rocketdyne are also SLS contractors.) NASA hopes to build a "Deep Space Gateway" near the moon before using SLS and Orion vehicles to send explorers to Mars. The first test launch is scheduled for 2019.
Elon Musk, meanwhile, has long aimed to build a colony on Mars using SpaceX rockets. The company is developing a reusable megarocket— called the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR — that would fly astronauts to Mars, the moon and other deep-space destinations. SpaceX also aims to launch a new heavy-lift rocket, the Falcon Heavy, in January. Last week, Musk announced on Twitter that the Falcon Heavy's first test flight will launch his own Tesla Roadster into space. Its destination? Mars orbit.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Ping.
Too late.
Matt Damon’s already there.....................
Last week, Musk announced on Twitter that the Falcon Heavy’s first test flight will launch his own Tesla Roadster into space. Its destination? Mars orbit.
...
I’ve read it will be a Mars transfer orbit, so it will go out to Mars orbit (around the Sun) and back to Earth, back and forth, for millions of years.
Better get going - there are other competitors.
Can a big government bureaucracy beat a small buy agile interloper to the prize? We shall see.
BFR? LOL!
To be fair, NASA’s mission is driven by politicians and going into space is expensive. We just haven’t funded NASA like we did for the Apollo missions.
Don’t laugh...it’s going to be titanic.
Mmm Hmmm.
The Boeing board was gonna close down the bidding office at KSC doing the CST-100 bid if they didn’t win it.
That’s the Boeing “commitment” to non-military space.
Boeing is a company with stockholders. Mulenberg is an employee with no ability to just write a check on a whim. If they don’t make money on it they don’t do it.
Musk is different. He can - up to a point - do what he wants. That’s good and bad. But it is the case.
Falcon Heavy can get to Mars with a decent mass fraction. And it is supposed to fly in January if you can believe SpaceFlightNow.com.
Mulenberg has Delta IV Heavy but at $400M a launch, he needs somebody to write him a big check. Musk can do it for 1/4 that or maybe less.
That kind of cash is what Larry Page or Sergey Brin spend on a birthday party.
BFLR = Bump For Later Reading
Nice Photoshop!
Right up there with Patton’s I’ll take Messina.
'Eh Elon, what should we call it?'
'I don't know, that's a big fcking rocket though isn't it?'
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.