and hypersonic aircraft shuttling travelers between continents in two hours or less. And Boeing intends to be a key player in the initial push to send humans to Mars, maybe even beating Musk to his long-time goal.
“I’m convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket,” Muilenburg said at the Chicago event on innovation, which was sponsored by the Atlantic magazine.
Like Musk’s SpaceX, Boeing is focused on building out the commercial space sector near earth as spaceflight becomes more routine, while developing technology to venture far beyond the moon. The Chicago-based aerospace giant is working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop a heavy-lift rocket called the Space Launch System for deep space exploration. Boeing and SpaceX are also the first commercial companies NASA selected to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.
Muilenburg sees space tourism closer to home “blossoming over the next couple of decades into a viable commercial market.” The International Space Station could be joined in low-earth orbit by dozens of hotels and companies pursuing micro-gravity manufacturing and research.
— AtlanticLIVE (@Atlantic_LIVE) October 4, 2016Boeing is the main partner paid by NASA to build the Space Launch System Nextbigfuture noted yesterday that if Spacex achieved even a small part of what Elon Musk and Spacex have promised with the Interplanetary Launch System, Spacex would kill funding for the Space Launch System
Spacex and Elon Musk are developing the Interplanetary Transport System, the Raptor engine and the Falcon Heavy on spec. Spacex is mostly self-funding the initial development of those systems.
Elon Musk is spending tens of millions per year on developing his Mars colonization plans and the hardware for it.
This will scale up to $200-300 million per year by 2018 or so.
Space Launch System received $2 billion in the latest fiscal year 2016 annual budget.
The SLS has gotten US$9.8 billion (2011-16) and will get over $40 billion until 2025 and Boeing and partners could receive a total of over $60 billion for full Space Launch System development.
The Block 1 SLS which hopes to have a first mission in 2018 can lift 70 tons to low earth orbit. A Block 1B SLS plans to be able to launch about 100 tons to low earth orbit around 2022.
Spacex Raptor Engine is test firing and the engine would be three times more powerful than the Merlin 1D engineThe Spacex production Raptor engine goal is specific impulse of 382 seconds and thrust of 3 MN (~310 metric tons) at 300 bar.
Welding is complete on the largest piece of the core stage that will provide the fuel for the first flight of NASA's new rocket, the Space Launch System,with the Orion spacecraft in 2018. The core stage liquid hydrogen tank has completed welding on the Vertical Assembly Center at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Standing more than 130 feet tall, the liquid hydrogen tank is the largest cryogenic fuel tank for a rocket in the world. The liquid hydrogen tank and liquid oxygen tank are part of the core stage -- the "backbone" of the SLS rocket that will stand at more than 200 feet tall. Together, the tanks will hold 733,000 gallons of propellant and feed the vehicle's four RS-25 engines to produce a total of 2 million pounds of thrust. This is the second major piece of core stage flight hardware to finish full welding on the Vertical Assembly Center.
The SLS design is driven by two imperatives: to achieve particular lift goals (initially 70 MT, later 105 MT and finally 130 MT) and to re-use Space Shuttle and Constellation technology.
Spacex and Elon Musk have the 61 page presentation of the Interplanetary Transport System and the plan from early exploration to a sustainable colony on MarsHowever, besides the test firings of the new Raptor engine that is needed for the Mars transport, Spacex has also built a full sized carbon composite fuel tank.
The Interplanetary Transport system can launch 550 tons to low earth orbit which is nearly four times as much as the Saturn V. It would be over four times as powerful as the SLS in the final version of the SLS
NASA Space Launch system Spacex Falcon HeavySOURCES - NASA, Spacex, Bloomberg, Twitter
Reposted via Next Big Future
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