The race is on. Both Boeing and SpeceX are planning to send a man to the Mars, but as always only one can be the first. In the latest interview with Dennis Muilenburg, CEO of Boeing said that they are planning to beat Elon Musk and his SpaceX in the race to the Red Planet.
Goals of Musk and his company is to send by 2024 with the arrival in 2025, but a recent disaster when one of the rockets turned into fireball might force him to slow down. In a statement, we could hear Boeing CEO saying: “I’m convinced that the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding on a Boeing rocket.”
At this point, we do not know if Muilenburg thinks that Boeing can first reach Mars before SpaceX or he predicts that Musk needs to postpone this and move it to a later date. One of the statements by Musk that could back this up is taken from last week meeting of space exploration associations in Mexico: “I’m not the best at this sort of thing,” aiming at his deadlines and the fact that he is often overoptimistic.
Both of these are battling for the position of the company that will send U.S. astronauts into space, and both have contracts with NASA. These deals include the development of necessary gear to send people to the International Space Station.
image source: techinsider.ioEverything looked great for SpaceX when Boeing announced that they would move their first manned space mission from 2017 to 2018. But after that, we saw a disastrous launch for Musk and a big problem with the rocket. This happened on September 1, and they are still trying to figure out what exactly caused the blast. Further development is in progress, and there are plans for November return to space.
