SpaceX Sees Direct Route To Mars, Boeing Doesn't; Here's Why | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD
HOUSTON - While SpaceX is focused on going straight to Mars, Boeing ( BA) said a less direct route to the red planet would help build infrastructure for future missions, including commercial ones. SpaceX, started by Tesla ( TSLA) founder Elon Musk, is building its largest rocket to date, dubbed the BFR, to send humans to Mars and beyond.
From article, (While SpaceX is focused on going straight to Mars, Boeing (BA) said a less direct route to the red planet would help build infrastructure for future missions, including commercial ones.
SpaceX, started by Tesla (TSLA) founder Elon Musk, is building its largest rocket to date, dubbed the BFR, to send humans to Mars and beyond. Earlier this week, SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said the rocket would be "orbital in 2020 or so" after "short hops" planned for next year. By 2022, SpaceX plans to send a cargo mission to Mars with crewed missions eventually following.
But the Trump administration is pushing for a return to the moon, with a lunar base, reversing the Obama administration's policies that focused on getting to Mars without landing on the moon.
NASA, which has contracted with Boeing to develop the Space Launch System deep-space rocket, determines federal space policy and has laid out a path to Mars that includes stops at the International Space Station and a lunar orbiter or base. The idea is that the ISS could be used to learn about long-duration human spaceflight, while the moon could be used to test new tools for Mars missions.
Matt Duggan, Boeing's deep-space exploration architect, said smaller steps would also leave behind infrastructure that commercial companies could use.
"If we go straight to Mars we run the risk of not having anything left over," he said in a recent interview at Boeing's facility near NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
The Apollo program was a stunning success but there wasn't any infrastructure left behind upon which to build for later missions further into space.
"The case for the moon is that it's partly about the resources," Duggan said. "It may make sense to make an investment there to start and get those resources. I also think that a moon base goes a lot further to enabling commercial participation in a Mars trip."
Right now there aren't many opportunities for commercial companies to earn money on a trip to Mars, besides getting paid by the government. Duggan said a focus on either a lunar orbital facility or lunar base could prompt science, cargo deliveries, resource mining and other commercial activity.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab has noted that the moon holds water that could support life and be converted to rocket fuel, helium-3 that could be used in nuclear fusion, and rare earth metals that could be used in a variety of commercial technologies.)
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