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Who will make it to Mars first?
It was about a year ago that Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg first began saying his company would beat SpaceX to Mars. "I'm convinced that the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding on a Boeing rocket," he said during a Boeing-sponsored tech summit in Chicago in October 2016.
On Thursday, Muilenburg repeated that claim on CNBC. Moreover, he added this tidbit about the Space Launch System rocket—for which Boeing is the prime contractor of the core stage—"We're going to take a first test flight in 2019 and we're going to do a slingshot mission around the Moon."
Unlike last year, Muilenburg drew a response from SpaceX this time. The company's founder, Elon Musk, offered a pithy response on Twitter: "Do it."
The truth is that Boeing's rocket isn't going anywhere particularly fast. Although Muilenburg says it will launch in 2019, NASA has all but admitted that will not happen. The rocket's maiden launch has already slipped from late 2017 into "no earlier than" December 2019. However, NASA officials have said a 2019 launch is a "best case" scenario, and a slip to June 2020 is more likely.
#SLS2020
Also, the next SpaceX flight is an ISS resupply mission and is scheduled for this coming Tuesday (December 12, 2017) at 1646 GMT (11:46 a.m. EST) from SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The plan is for the booster to return to landing at Landing Zone-1, also at Cape Canaveral.
Previously: Maiden Flight of the Space Launch System Delayed to 2019
Elon Musk Publishes Mars Colonization Plan
SpaceX Appears to Have Pulled the Plug on its Red Dragon Plans
SpaceX Putting Red Dragon on the Back Burner
SpaceX: Making Human Life Multiplanetary
Related: VP of Engineering at United Launch Alliance Resigns over Comments About the Space Launch Industry
ULA Exec: SpaceX could be Grounded for 9-12 Months
Commercial Space Companies Want More Money From NASA
Bigelow and ULA to Put Inflatable Module in Orbit Around the Moon by 2022
SpaceX Unlocks "Steamroller" Achievement as Company Eyes 19 Launches in 2017
Trump Space Adviser: Mars "Too Ambitious" and SLS is a Strategic National Asset
SpaceX's Reusable Rockets Could End EU's Arianespace, and Other News
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 11 2017, @01:35PM (12 children)
Musk is all sizzle and no steak, hops from one headline grabbing project announcement to the next. But when it comes to delivering he falls pretty short. And that is when their idea is plausible.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday December 11 2017, @02:10PM
But... what? You don't have your money, thus the optative?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by pe1rxq on Monday December 11 2017, @02:19PM (1 child)
Right now Musk is ahead. Dragon on Falcon-9 is real and has flown multiple times. Its not the human rated version, but pretty close. Falcon heavy is supposed to launch in a month or so...
The track record for NASA and manned spaceflight is actually bad when it comes to plausability. The last plan that was actually (partially) executed was the space shuttle and that plan was from 1969.
Every plan since then ended up in limbo.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday December 11 2017, @06:04PM
> The track record for NASA and manned spaceflight is actually bad when it comes to plausability. The last plan that was actually
> (partially) executed was the space shuttle and that plan was from 1969. Every plan since then ended up in limbo.
To be fair, they do what Congress tells them to, and Congress ran out of the space-fairing enemies they needed to stay focused.
The rise of the Evil Commies II could bruise enough egos to help with that: A few Chinese staying on the Moon longer than all Americans combined could be a start (still not an existential crisis fueling ICBM research).
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Monday December 11 2017, @02:55PM
SpaceX ties ULA’s annual launch record with 16th launch this year [spacenews.com]
They are doing well even before you consider the effects of reusable rockets.
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(Score: 4, Informative) by khallow on Monday December 11 2017, @03:54PM (2 children)
Compared to Boeing? Let us keep in mind that SpaceX has already developed over the last 15 years two rockets, several rocket engines, a space capsule, reusable first stage, and is working on their own heavy lift vehicle, all for much less (like an order of magnitude less!) than Boeing would do with NASA money. Second, Boeing and NASA haven't developed new launch vehicles for a long time (as noted already, NASA hasn't successfully deployed a new launch vehicle since the Space Shuttle, Boeing since Delta IV Heavy in early 2000s).
Sure, I could see the complaint having some validity. Musk makes a lot of claims and predictions, and these frequently don't work out. But Boeing is even worse at that.
And the SLS is its own largest obstacle to doing anything with the SLS, including visiting Mars. NASA has had a pretty stable budget since the mid 1970s. It's not getting radically bigger. So an expensive launch vehicle like the SLS, which currently consumes [behindtheblack.com] $2 billion a year (not including Orion capsule which is another $1 billion a year), is going to drain the budget for manned space activities. In other words, NASA can pay for the SLS or it can do manned activities in space - not both.
To elaborate on that, NASA estimated it would spend [nasa.gov] (see page 4) $3.4 billion in 2017 on "Space Exploration". Almost all of that (including "Exploration Ground Systems") is meant for SLS or Orion. NASA's total budget was almost exactly $18 billion. So almost 20% of NASA's budget is devoted to designing and building a rocket that they can't support and do any other manned activities with.
In contrast, if they were to instead pay for launches on the Falcon 9, that would cost less than $3 million per metric ton ($61 million [spacenews.com] to launch up to 22.8 metric tons) to low Earth orbit (LEO). So an opportunity cost of SLS and Orion so far this year has been that NASA could have instead put up 1200-1300 metric tons of payload into LEO using the Falcon 9. That would, for example, be roughly the mass of propellant required for three 500 ton vehicles to travel to Mars or the mass of four International Space Stations in LEO. In other words, instead of working on a launch vehicle and associated capsule that might launch at the earliest in 2019, they could be launching as much payload this year as the SLS will launch in its first decade!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12 2017, @04:21AM (1 child)
That's our khallow! Rocket Scientist! Entreprenuer! Privatiser of the Torture Dungeons of Abu Ghraib! More for less, he says! (Wait, does khallow actually know anything about rocket science? Did he fire an Estes once? Is he blowing smoke up our arses and telling us it is raining, AGAIN?)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 12 2017, @05:23AM
Moving on, estimates of the price of SLS (and its component parts) and the Falcon 9 are public record. The former is expected to spend something like $40 billion just to get to the point where the big version of the SLS launches for the first time with whatever payload it ends up carrying. $40 billion buys a lot of Falcon 9 launches and a lot of smart space science and exploration missions, even of the manned sort. It turns out that the SLS will never be economical. They require a peculiar supply chain with no other use, an army of workers, and maintain a hideously low launch frequency. It will never be competitive with even the worst commercial launchers out there (Delta IV, currently).
You don't have to wonder whether I'm "blowing smoke up your ass". You can figure it out on your own by doing your own research. It won't take long, if you're any good with numbers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snow on Monday December 11 2017, @04:15PM (2 children)
Remember when he started SpaceX? People (Including me) laughed. Then he made it into orbit. Then he accomplished the most amazing thing I have ever seen -- landing a 10 story rocket on it's ass. On a floating barge.
SpaceX has already accomplished the impossible. They have made space exciting again.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday December 11 2017, @07:48PM
And it appears they've motivated Boeing to get off it's lazy ass as well.
Competition is good....
(Score: 4, Insightful) by choose another one on Monday December 11 2017, @09:17PM
> SpaceX has already accomplished the impossible. They have made space exciting again.
Actually, the real success is that they've made it boring (as he predicted).
I no longer bother to look for SpaceX launches in the news, or watch the videos - oh look, another rocket landed on it's arse, again, whoop-de-doo. It isn't exciting anymore, it's routine.
Now, Falcon Heavy is exciting, I'll watch that, because it's bigger but mostly because Musk is talking up the probability of spectacular failure (or talking down probability of success - but, same thing) - it's going to be exciting (newer bigger) if it works, exciting (big fireworks) if it doesn't, spectacular either way. But, when they've done a few of them, they'll be boring too.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday December 12 2017, @04:29AM (1 child)
How's that 787 Dreamliner working out, Boeing shill?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12 2017, @05:16AM
I fly internationally 50-100 times per year. Most flights that used to be on a 74x or a 3xx are on a dreamliner these days. People with lack of knowledge talking down to others, despite being wrong. Lemme guess - you're a millennial?
(Score: 2, Funny) by petecox on Monday December 11 2017, @01:57PM (3 children)
If they slingshot around the sun they'll end up 300 years in the past and have plenty of time to surpass Elon!
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday December 11 2017, @02:25PM
Sling-shot around the Sun to reach Mars? Not gonna work, the grav assist manoeuvre requires the gravitation of a large body in motion.
At the best, one can try an Oberth manoeuvre [wikipedia.org] and deliver crispy humans to Mars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday December 11 2017, @02:32PM
Computer! Computer!
How quaint...
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday December 11 2017, @05:19PM
So you're saying Boeing makes Klingon spaceships? I mean, that would explain a few things ...
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 11 2017, @02:49PM (2 children)
Boeing might get to Mars with their spacecraft, but it will likely be put into Earth orbit on a SpaceX milk run.
OTOH, Voyager just fired an engine after 37 years and it just worked.
That is serious overkill for LEO, but might be nice to have far from home.
Deep space may require two mindsets, that brings these two together.
First, the ability to sit down, do it by the numbers and get it right. (Steely eyed space man.)
Second, the ability to figure out a simpler way to just get it done. (The often forgotten right stuff.)
Nasa engineering used to have both, but....
The classic manned space industry does not lean towards simple and just get it done.
(Both due to the Nasa/contractor thing and the Nasa/career risk thing.)
It is a theory that SpaceX does not have a bead on making the serious overkill Voyager like stuff.
They have never really tried.
But also, it may be less important.
Apollo 13 taught a deep space lesson that stuff happens and having 2 space craft was handy.
From a mission architecture standpoint, this means instead of putting all your eggs in one gold plated basket, 2 stainless ones flying together might be wiser.
Given this sort of thinking, X might have the upper hand.
The thing is that it is still a horse race, but a more team effort might be useful.
NASA certainly gets some credit for setting up a situation that got us to having 2 paths to this goal.
So what next?
Standing orders might be: Don't break X and try to what you can with the rest.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Monday December 11 2017, @03:16PM
That's fluff, not analysis.
SpaceX builds rockets. They need to be reliable enough to get into orbit. But they are going beyond that. SpaceX is already estimating how often they can reuse their launchers. This includes some minor checkups or refurbishing on the ground, but that will initially be for safety purposes and their turnaround time will probably drop to the point where they can refly a booster the next day. If these things were built with a disposability mindset, reusing them would be impossible. They are overengineered in order to be reused, and overengineering is a quality that can be applied to Voyager, Mars rovers, etc.
SpaceX reusable launch system development program [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 11 2017, @03:57PM
What second path? SLS hasn't shown it will be viable and my take is that it is institutionally incapable of being viable. It consumes too much of the relatively fixed manned space budget to allow for the SLS and manned missions to Mars at the same time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday December 11 2017, @03:11PM (6 children)
Did Boeing specify what condition the humans would be in when they arrived at mars?
Or even if they would be alive when launched from Earth?
Does Boeing understand the difference between innovation and sucking at the government teat while trying to come up with innovating new ways to suck even more money from the government?
Universal health care is so complex that only 32 of 33 developed nations have found a way to make it work.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday December 11 2017, @04:19PM (5 children)
Well, one way they can get to Mars faster and easier is to eliminate the need for a landing craft, and also for any rocket propellant for slowing the ship to enter Mars orbit. Just aim the craft with humans at Mars and go full speed; at the end of the trip, there will be humans on Mars.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday December 11 2017, @05:59PM (4 children)
And you will find volunteers for that.
Which is no way, shape or form, a comment on what they would leave behind...
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday December 11 2017, @09:23PM (3 children)
Perhaps some loony billionaires would pay to be buried on Mars, or at least be dropped upon it in their coffins having already died?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Monday December 11 2017, @10:29PM (2 children)
"Here is the launch container - you lie in this moulded foam"
"Where are the breathing apparatus and controls?"
"There is enough air for the mission"
"..and the controls?"
"You will not need any controls, the computer will ensure you arrive."
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Monday December 11 2017, @10:41PM (1 child)
It is utterly unacceptable that Russia has been leading with a score of 3. I demand that we find 4 Proud Americans ready to die in space !
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday December 11 2017, @10:54PM
Have we just scripted "Weekend at Bernie's 3"?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 11 2017, @03:49PM (9 children)
Personally, I don't see Boeing beating SpaceX. But, I have zero inside information. I can only base my presumption on the fact that SpaceX has come out of nowhere, and accomplished as much as they have, in just a decade. Boeing has been at their business of bilking the government out of big bucks for a hell of a lot longer. I'd say that Boeing could and should have put real spacecraft into space a long time ago. At the least, why didn't they make a better space shuttle, after we lost a couple of them?
Boeing isn't really serious about going to Mars. SpaceX is.
Not only will Musk do it before Boeing, he'll do it cheaper.
Again, that is only opinion. I WISH I had inside information though!!
But, don't anyone be terribly surprised if the damned Chinese do it before any of ours do. That country is determined to dominate us in every field, and they move closer to that goal every day. Space exploration? It's on their list of things to do!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJSAvzEPf5w [youtube.com] (The intro is kinda disjointed, but the facts do come through)
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday December 11 2017, @04:16PM
I've looked into that. China is ramping up their space program, but their big spend in the near term is going to be on their own space station [wikipedia.org] (originally called Tiangong-3). It may come with a better-than-Hubble space telescope [popsci.com]. Which should be considered a good thing for the world (probably should have been done with the ISS). But it's still Low Earth orbit, nowhere near Mars, "ground" that has already been tread.
They (CNSA) plan to send a rover [wikipedia.org] to Mars around the same time as NASA's Mars 2020 [wikipedia.org] rover and ESA's ExoMars 2020 [wikipedia.org].
But none of the national space agencies have announced a plan to land on Mars. That's right, there is no plan to land on Mars. You hear about 2035 being the target date. Current NASA plans [wikipedia.org] would involve a lunar space station in the 2020s followed by a Mars space station around 2033. No manned landing. Boeing and Lockheed Martin are already working [popularmechanics.com] on the Deep Space Gateway lunar space station. Russia and other current ISS partners may join in [popsci.com]. Lockheed Martin's plan [wikipedia.org] would have (NASA) astronauts orbiting Mars around 2028, a bit more ambitious than NASA's current estimate. I think we all know that will slip into the 2030s.
By comparison, SpaceX plans to land humans on Mars by 2024 [wikipedia.org]. I think that date is likely to slip, but it's the most aggressive plan of them all.
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(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday December 11 2017, @04:23PM (7 children)
At the least, why didn't they make a better space shuttle, after we lost a couple of them?
Boeing isn't really serious about going to Mars. SpaceX is.
To be fair, they surely didn't make a better space shuttle because the government wasn't willing to pay them to do so. They'd have been happy to build anything the government wanted I'm sure, it's just a question of the government providing the funding.
But the big problem really seems to be the completely broken and dysfunctional relationship between contractors and the government, where the government pays tons of money to favored contractors and projects just stretch on, sometimes without ever getting done, with massive cost overruns. The way government acquisition works seems to encourage this.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday December 11 2017, @05:43PM (6 children)
Let's say you're a boss at an entrenched government contractor, one that has substantial relation$hips with all of the relevant politicians and bureaucrats.
Now, a contract job comes in, and you have two options:
A. Work all-out to complete the job as quickly and efficiently as possible.
B. Make it look like your working, but only kind of do the job, and send a small percentage of the money earned back to the politicians and bureaucrats as kickbacks to ensure they renew next year.
Yeah, almost everyone picks B, because it's a lot more profitable.
This happens at all levels of government, whether you're talking about local road repair jobs or big bucks federal defense contracts. It's more common when the politicians are in "safe" seats and don't have to worry about a serious election challenge, and have reached what they know will be the pinnacle of what they can accomplish in their careers (i.e. a city councilman who knows they will never ever become mayor).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday December 11 2017, @06:29PM (5 children)
What I wonder is why it's like this, because in decades past it wasn't (or at least not nearly as bad). The US used to get projects done quickly, and for not that much money (inflation-adjusted). Look at all the bridges and highways that were built from 100 to 50 years ago, using the technology of the day. If things were as dysfunctional then as now, we wouldn't have them. And look at how fast military projects were completed: fighter planes were developed and put into production within 4 years. Compare that with the F-35.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 11 2017, @08:32PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday December 11 2017, @10:48PM (2 children)
Don't forget "out sourcing", as opposed to the 40s/50s/even 60s style "partnering". It usedto be private companies and government worked together, with private and public money mixed, so a government project would have government and private employees working along side each other, possibly in a government building, possibly even with government oversight.
Now, with profits and IP and insurance/risk issues, no company would allow government employees into their buildings where any work is done,nor would any government have private company employees around in a government bulding (unless appropriate rent/contracts/costs had been sorted, and certainly NOT where government work was being done!)
Collaboration now means "at meetings, dividing up the funding".
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday December 12 2017, @05:22AM (1 child)
nor would any government have private company employees around in a government bulding (unless appropriate rent/contracts/costs had been sorted, and certainly NOT where government work was being done!)
That's not true. There's a LOT of government contractors working on-site in government facilities, frequently alongside government employees. Basically, it seems to be much like the reason private corporations hire contractors: it's a way for the government to more easily hire qualified people, and if they don't work out, get rid of them easily, even though it costs more on an hourly basis.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday December 12 2017, @08:15AM
As replacement employees, not as employees of a private company working in partnership with the government.
Worse, they may be technically employees of ServiceCompanyXYZ Ltd, adding its 30% to the hourly rate of te supplied contractor.
The key word was partnership (with private company, as, well, equals)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday December 11 2017, @11:04PM
Three reasons I can think of:
1.They received substantially more funding, so even if a substantial portion was swallowed up in corruption there's still more work actually being done. It also means more effort could be put into oversight and administration.
2. Decades ago, the major works projects were believed to be necessary for keeping America safe. For instance, part of the reason the interstates were built was that there was a real fear that the Commies would invade the US, and President Eisenhower being the smart general he was wanted to make sure that he could, for instance, easily move an army formation from California to New York in a reasonably timely fashion without airlifting it. So the people involved were more likely to actually care about the project being done because there were real problems if they didn't. By contrast, nobody really believes their survival depends on the F-35, for instance.
3. The Republican Party in the early 20th century was based on an ideal of "good governance", with the goal of making the government as efficient as possible at what it's doing, which meant that people like Eisenhower were constantly on the lookout for money going places it shouldn't. The Republican Party after 1980, by contrast, believes that government is always hopelessly corrupt and inefficient, so their focus is not on eliminating the corruption so much as making sure as much of the graft as possible goes into their own pockets. The Democrats by all appearances followed suit after 1992, although they still try to pretend otherwise sometimes.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday December 11 2017, @05:42PM (1 child)
Great! NASA, SpaceX, all the various nation-projects (european, india, japan, russia, china etc) etc can use all the competition they can find. The more that wants to build colonies on X, travel to Y etc the better. It might be a prestige thing about whom gets there first and such but then it's not much of win if there isn't a contest or a competition. Nobody gets nods for kicking down open doors.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 11 2017, @06:02PM
Read my comment above. NASA is not currently planning to land on Mars in the mid-2030s. Instead they want to do an orbital station. Russia and China have no plans yet. SpaceX wants to do it by 2024.
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by dwilson on Monday December 11 2017, @07:16PM (2 children)
Well, there are really only two ways to do that.
One: get there first through superior engineering, innovation, etc and so forth.
Two: throw enough roadblocks in front of SpaceX via their existing relationships with government to ensure SpaceX doesn't get there at all.
Just because he said they will beat SpaceX to Mars, doesn't mean they're going to try to get to Mars.
- D
(Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Monday December 11 2017, @10:52PM (1 child)
Congress passes a funding regulation that says Boeing will provide the legs of the lander and SpaceX will do the other 99.8%
Muilenberg wins
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday December 11 2017, @11:15PM
Elon's team engineers space-rated spaceX stickers to put under the lander's feet and explorers' shoes at the last second. They leave a logo imprint when the first-step-on-Mars picture is taken.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday December 12 2017, @04:41AM
What is the ratio of engineers to total staff at both companies?
So, which is an actual engineering company and which is a company that employes "documentation officers" and government program managers?
What components are built in-house and what components are outsourced at each company?
By this I mean, which company is building the manufacturing and process engineering bedrock that is absolutely required to do this, and which is outsourcing this to the lowest bidder?
Any organization as big as Boeing simply cannot compete with a competent, motivated competitor. SpaceX has proven they are both. The only counter-move now is distraction through PR and erecting roadblocks through paid-off judges and congressmen.