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Commercialization

Boeing Guy Claims He'll Beat SpaceX Guy To Mars

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
December 7, 2017

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

34 responses to “Boeing Guy Claims He'll Beat SpaceX Guy To Mars”

  1. Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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    Wait so not only will SLS somehow continue to exist assuming the fsw issues that need inspector general investigating after your report on abuse and contractor arm twisting but NASA funding somehow materializes the billions for mars transit vehicle, mars descent lander, mars surface habitat, mars ascent vehicle. Whereas SpaceX just needs 2 BFRs since that is what goes to Mars, crew lives in and comes home in. Which would you put money on?

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      Alternate reality here. The Republicans have already started talking about cutting Federal spending to balance out the increases in the deficit which will be caused by the current tax “reform” bill working its way through the legislative process. In that type of an environment, there will be NO big increases in NASA’s budget to pay for anything beyond SLS/Orion and perhaps Deep Space Gateway.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        Dude. You have this upside down.

        I’m assured by my Fox-watching friends that reducing taxes results in beaucoup dollars flowing into the treasury. It’s obvious, they tell me, so just you wait!

      • Paul451 says:
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        [This started out at two paragraphs. {sigh} ]

        Ignoring their hypocrisy, if you cancelled SLS/Orion, it would free up around $3.7b/yr. Ie, $37 billion over the next decade. Nearly $45b by 2030. Ignoring rising costs, inflation, etc.

        So kill SLS/Orion by next year. Put $20b into a Manned Mars Prize, expiring in 2030, $2b into a lesser Prize¹, $10b into technology development² at $1b/yr, and keep $12+b as savings. Roughly $1b/yr in savings, averaged over the life of the program. Over 5% of NASA’s budget.

        You could do something similar with ISS. It gets around $5b/yr. (Roughly $2.3b/yr directly, plus $1.5/yr for astronauts and CRS, plus $1.1b/yr for commercial crew. Assuming it is either going to be extended to 2027 or have its funding diverted 1:1 into Lunar DSG, that’s around $50b over the next decade. If you could instead replace it with commercial stations delivered in 2022, and bring forward the end of ISS, you could free up half that cost.

        And instead of copying ISS, let’s say you offer $2b for a human research focused station. Low micro-g quality³ requirements, lots of volume, not a huge amount of equipment. Another $3b for high quality³ micro-g research lab, smaller but more power demanding. And $4b for a rotating, variable gravity animal research facility, maybe due a few years after the others. Total cost $10b.

        Between the three stations, NASA would act as an anchor tenant, at $2b/yr for research programs⁵. (Ground-ops, crew/cargo transport, maintenance, etc, all provided by the commercial vendor, not NASA.) Another $10b between 2022 and 2027.

        Leaving $5b in projected savings over ten years. Or another 2.5% savings in NASA’s budget. But still allowing commercial crew launch plenty of time to mature into stable platforms, yet putting a hard deadline in front of them to switch over to commercial operation.

        ¹ elsewhere I suggested sample-return, expiring when the main prize is claimed. Can serve as a stepping stone to the main Prize, to test your lander/return-vehicle on a robotic collection; or allow a smaller team to leap-frog the bigger players.

        ² such as a space-rated nuclear reactor, improved long duration ECLSS, etc, and restoring aeronautics (which was cut by 25% last year to help prop up SLS.)

        ³ part of the cost of ISS, and a big hindrance on its operations is the requirement for high “purity” micro-gravity. Ie, keeping movement and vibration below one-millionth of a g. Human “zero-g” research doesn’t require that low level, milli-g would be excessive for the vast majority; and the need for low vibration makes human experimentation (exercise-equipment, etc) difficult and expensive. Separating human “zero-g” research from materials “zero-g” research would make both easier and better.

        ⁴ either single manned station or a split, human-tended unmanned station flying near a separate manned hab. You could see where a team could leverage their early work on a manned facility to lower the cost of a separate man-tended facility, instead of doubling up. Or a team with an early lead on a manned station could offer its services (for a fee) to other teams working on the other two types of stations, letting them focus on their speciality. Or you could end up with three manned stations.

        ⁵ you’re thinking, hang on, how can $2b fund a level of research that currently costs $5b? (Or $4b/yr for ISS, ignoring CC which doesn’t yet support the station.) The maintenance demands of ISS means that there’s maybe one astronaut free for research (actually it’s less.) So $4b for less than one person-year of research. If someone else is operating and maintaining the station(s), then your own astronauts are only there for research. (Hence wouldn’t have to be “astronauts”, in the traditional sense, since they wouldn’t be maintaining the station, doing EVAs, etc, they’d be more like lab techs… in spaaace.) If commercially stations can be operated at a lower price than ISS, then halving the funding beyond 2022 should actually massively increase the research-dollars and research-hours.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      He said beat TO mars .. not landing on mars… The first launch from the Deep Space Gateway will only a mars flyby not a landing.

      • Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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        From the article
        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 responded.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        Is it depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is?

  2. Mark Thompson says:
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    What is Boeing’s technology platform? Is he referring to SLS? And what do they plan to land on Mars? I don’t think they have announced any kind of landing vehicle. Spacex has BFR, which might not work, but at least he is ahead in the powerpoint department so far. If we truly have two U.S. companies in a race to Mars, that’s great for the U.S.

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      Boeing is the prime contractor for SLS.

      http://www.boeing.com/space

      • Mark Thompson says:
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        Being a prime contractor to NASA, and funding, launching and landing your own people on Mars are two very different things. Boeing is taking credit for way too much. Kimberly Clark is the toilet paper vendor for NASA, are they too claiming they will beat Spacex to Mars?

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      BFR is stunningly elegant in conception, particularly when discussed in terms of the unneeded hardware you list.

    • wwheaton says:
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      Phobos is the perfect compromise — one side locked into Mars facing orientation, like our moon, so great for a Mars base until we are ready to land. It actually requires less delta-V to visit from Earth than landing and return from the surface of the Moon. Phobos provides very substantial shielding against even the highest energy cosmic rays, enough gravity to prevent stuff from floating off, but almost zero delta-V for landing and departure required.

      Able to operate Mars surface roving and experimentation robots with essentially zero command latency, anywhere at low latitude on planet with just a couple of small relay satellites in orbit 120 degrees before and after. About 10 trillion tons of mass, likely some useful material resources, including possibly water ice, as T<0 C, mostly much less.

      Who could ask for a better Base Camp ?!

  3. Tim Blaxland says:
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    Muilenburg:”We’re in the final assembly right now.” <- I guess definitions of ‘final’ vary quite a bit. Last I read (a week ago), the second stage was sitting at KSC, and techs were playing with practice engines at Michoud. There’s quite a bit of assembly to go yet. Meanwhile SpaceX are about to roll to their heavy lift rocket to the pad (Dec/Jan).

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      What the heck is he even talking about being in ‘final assembly’? Orion?? I’m confused.

    • fcrary says:
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      He may mean the major systems are complete and just need to be assembled together.

      However, there’s something else odd about his (and your) use of the term “final.” It implies an end. As if each rocket is a separate and individual project. SpaceX might talk about final assembly of first state B.1043, but no one would say final assembly the Falcon 9. Or the Atlas V, for that matter. That’s not really how people talk about something in active production.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        If you are thinking about program dollars, ‘final’ = last billing date.

        • fcrary says:
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          I guess that was my point. It makes it sound as if each SLS they build is a separate contract (which it may well be.) As in a contract to build the SLS for EM-1, that contract ends. Then another contract for the SLS to launch Europa Clipper, which also ends. Then another for the SLS for EM-2, etc.

          That’s a very different mindset from a contract that says, “Build and assemble the components for SLS launch vehicles at a rate which supports one flight per year, from now until 2029 (with an option to renew the contract for another ten years.)”

  4. Jeff2Space says:
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    LOL! That Boeing guy is no doubt referring to SLS, since Boeing is the prime contractor. And we all know about the seemingly continuous slipping of the SLS schedule.

  5. Michael Spencer says:
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    Of course he says that. He is the freakin’ CEO.

    But public companies are obligated not to obfuscate or misdirect in a way that could affect investors, who can confidently rely on public-facing statements made by officers.

    And Mr. Muilenburg is taking advantage of the limited knowledge people have about space and space policy, as well as a natural jingoism favoring Boeing.

    Or maybe just maybe…he really thinks this statement relies on facts? Is that even possible?

    • Mark Thompson says:
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      You way overstate the ’34 act. Here is the wikipedia summary of a 10b-5 violation, none of which remotely applies here.
      The Supreme Court has held that there are six elements that a plaintiff must allege and prove in order to prevail in a Rule 10b-5 action:
      1. The defendant made a “material misrepresentation or omission”;
      2. the defendant acted with “scienter”, or a “wrongful state of mind” (typically understood to mean that the defendant intended to make the material misrepresentation or omission, or acted with recklessness in making the misrepresentation or omission);
      3. the material misrepresentation or omission was made “in connection with the purchase or sale of a security”;
      4. the plaintiff who was allegedly victimized by the fraud relied upon the material misrepresentation or omission (if the security is traded on a public stock exchange, such as the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ, the law will typically presume that shareholders rely on the integrity of the market, and therefore that the price of the stock reflected material misrepresentation and that shareholders relied upon the integrity of the market);
      5. the plaintiff suffered an economic loss as a result of the alleged fraud; and
      6. the plaintiff can allege and prove “loss causation”, which means that the allegedly fraudulent misrepresentation or omission caused the plaintiff’s economic loss.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Yes, its possible, just as its possible NASA thinks some day they will send Orion around the Moon with astronuts.

  6. Bill Housley says:
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    Elon couldn’t have answered better. Muilenburg is correct that the SLS Mark 1 is being assembled, but that rocket design is not even going to Mars. The Boeing “Mars Rocket” might indeed be the first to deliver humans to Mars, but the development timeline would need to start slipping the opposite direction from what it is now. 😉

  7. mfwright says:
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    Those tweets will be timeless, 20 or 30 years from now somebody will post “remember when…” However, I wonder if someone else will land on the Moon and nobody will notice.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      For some good-natured mirth, let’s listen to the Smart Folks:

      Robert Metcalfe, 3Com founder in 1995:

      “Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet’s continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”

      Thomas Watson, President of IBM:

      “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

      Bill Gates, Famous Gazillionaire, 2004:

      “Two years from now, spam will be solved.”

      And my favorite:
      Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm, well-known Haptic Guru, in 2006 on Apple making a phone:

      “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        I like this one.

        “I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years.” Wilbur Wright 1909

      • Paul451 says:
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        Belatedly:

        Thomas Watson, President of IBM:
        “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

        There’s no record of Watson actually saying or writing this, nor any contemporary record even hinting that he’d said something similar.

        The best anyone can find is a similar comment by Howard Aiken describing the UK market at the time for a specific model of IBM’s “Harvard” calculator-computers. Ie, not Watson, not the world, not computers in general, not about the future.

        (Aside: Similarly, Metcalfe, I believe, was talking about the dot-com bubble. He was four years early, but it did indeed collapse.)

  8. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Let’s have a real race. Give a one time payment of $20 billion to SpaceX and $20 billion to NASA/Boeing. The winner is the first one to place an human on the surface of Mars and return them safely to Earth. The loser gets to give their money back to the treasury.

    My guess is NASA/Boeing wouldn’t even be able to get beyond view graphs with only $20 billion… As for SpaceX.

    • Paul451 says:
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      You wouldn’t give it in advance. You simply offer it as a Prize. If a company/group can’t put together enough funding before claiming the prize, they are not adequate to achieve the prize. That way, the Prize is open to all players, not just Boeing and SpaceX.

      Aside: The Gemini/Apollo program (they were funded together) cost around $27b in 1967-dollars. Today that’s around $200b equivalent. So a $20b prize is exactly 1/10th of the equivalent cost of the Apollo landing. That would be a nice demonstration of the progress in space technology (something the actual space program rarely demonstrates.) You might throw in a 1/100th prize of $2b for a Mars sample-return, if claimed prior to any manned landing.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        No, that is why both the Andari X-Prize and Google Lunar X-Prizes were failures, they violated the basic principle behind prizes which is to harness the creativity of the masses.

        But this is a grudge race between two entirs, very different than a prize.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        In 1963 the Air Force figured $1.5B (about $11B today) would fund the MISS program, culminating with a person on the moon.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Ok, but to make it fair, SX gets $20B, while Boeing gets $40B.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        They have probably already burned through $40 billion on SLS/Orion, so you would probably need to make it more like $100 billion 🙂