Boeing is confident that will overtake Elon musk on the way to Mars

The installation of the F-1 engines in stage S-IC of the carrier rocket "Saturn 5", the heaviest missiles in the history of mankind, o the cargo into orbit. The engines were made by Rocketdyne, and the Assembly of the first stage was "Boeing". March 1, 1965. Photo: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

A colony on Mars — a question almost solved. Apparently, NASA believes the Foundation base on Mars is even more of a priority than the base base on the moon. Human exploration of another planet in the Solar system is an important step in expanding its presence in space. As said Elon Musk, the expansion of the habitat of our race on two planets is important from the point of security. The Martian colony will be a backup of the gene pool of people, for example, in the event of nuclear catastrophe or other disaster on Earth.

But even without the existential need the conquest of Mars appears to be inevitable, given the innate desire of mankind to expand into new territory.

The base of the Martian colony — a matter of time. An important mission will require a significant cash infusion. Its budget is not as big of course as the cost of the US production of military fighters, but still considerable. Major players in the aerospace industry is already beginning to prepare the ground for the development of this budget.

His first steps were taken by Elon Musk and the SpaceX company, which recently presented its plan for the production of hundreds of reusable rockets to transport to Mars almost a million colonists and hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo.

Of course, competitors could not ignore this presentation gave His answer, the largest NASA contractor aerospace Corporation Boeing. Executive Director Dennis Muilenburg (Dennis Muilenburg), speaking at a conference on innovation in Chicago, said confidently that Boeing will deliver the first settlers to Mars: "I am convinced that the first man to set foot on the surface of Mars, arriving here on the missile of the Boeing", — he said.

The company opened a special website "Beyond Earth" where has published its own road map Path to Mars.



Boeing reminds that from the beginning of the space age, it is "designed, developed, produced and managed manned and robotic space vehicles and infrastructure". Elon Musk wasn't even born when the company "Boeing" took part in the US space program for more than 60 years ago.

Recall that in the second half of the 1950s, NASA began to plan for manned lunar expedition, was going to base 21, a local underground air force base on the moon — Lunex Project. In parallel, discussed the plan to establish military bases on the moon — Project Horizon. It is possible that work on these projects involved "Boeing", as well as in the famous Apollo program.

Now NASA aims to expand human presence beyond Earth, including on the surface of Mars. In this regard, the company "Boeing" is committed to using the experience of 60 years of participation in the space program for performing new task: finding new life on other planets and satellites, the search for valuable mineral resources, protect humanity "against unknown threats" as well as the delivery of colonists to Mars.

In the context of a future Mars mission engineers "Boeing" is ready to participate in all the necessary design work. Among them, the company lists the following:

• Development of radiation protection for the safe delivery of people to Mars.
• Testing new technologies to enable Autonomous astronauts and equipment to Mars and in space.
• Systems engineering support on solar energy and test them in orbit.
• Research on the lunar orbit and on the moon.

The test of these technologies are planned during lunar missions, which are considered as preparatory.

Vice-President of "Boeing" John Elbon (John Elbon) was expressed earlier that before the Mars mission, the company is considering an intermediate step — the creation station on the lunar orbit. The plan calls for between 2021 and 2025 the Assembly station of the five modules that will deliver the boosters of SLS: two residential module, the transfer chamber (airlock), logistics module, power module. If all goes according to plan, the company expects to send ships to orbit Mars in the early 2030's, and people on the surface of Mars — in the middle or the end of 2030-ies.

For comparison, Elon Musk wants to send a spacecraft Dragon to Mars in 2018 and in 2024.

The company "Boeing" intends to actively pursue commercial launches into orbit, bright features of technology, which subsequently uses the journey to Mars (for example, for the astronauts on the lunar station will set the same delay of communication in 30 minutes, which will be in communication with Mars). Together with NASA the Boeing company is developing a heavy rocket Space Launch System. As the company Ilona Mask, Boeing also has a contract with NASA to deliver astronauts to the ISS.

Statements and plans "Boeing" seem more real than the statements of Elon musk. Remember, because Boeing built the first stage S-IC rocket "Saturn-5", the lifting, the most powerful, heaviest and largest of the currently created humanity missiles conclusions payload into orbit.

Executive Director of "Boeing" Dennis Muilenburg believes that space tourism is close to that in the coming decades is to become a "viable and prosperous commercial market." Mulenburg anticipates that the ISS orbit will be joined by dozens of space hotels, scientific laboratories and production plants for the production of high-precision electronics and other products in microgravity. It is in this market the company will run in the "Martian" technology. "I think this is a great area for us," he said.



X-51A WaveRider

At the Chicago conference Muilenburg also noted that he sees potential for a new supersonic aircraft, flying at speeds of Mach 3 or more. It should be noted that an experimental hypersonic cruise missile X-51A WaveRider production company "Boeing" has reached a speed of Mach 5.1 on the test in 2013. However, this is hardly relevant to the Martian mission.

Source: geektimes.ru/post/281212/