Compare And Contrast Spacex And Boeing

Everybody should remember The Space Race, a period during the cold-war where the United States of America and Russia fought for space supremacy. What most people do not know, however, is that there is a new race in space. This race, is a race to Mars. There are two private companies vying to get humans to Mars first. The two companies are SpaceX and Boeing. The clear winner right now is Boeing. In order to determine who is winning in the race to Mars, there will be points on each individual company's plan for the future, quotes from each company's on the topic, and each company's past endeavors.

The future is unknown, so there are still many things that could happen. However, each company does have plans for the future. First looking at SpaceX,
this company actually made news headlines at the time of this essay. In 2018, SpaceX plans on sending a manned space capsule beyond the Moon (Lewin). This will be one the first expeditions to the moon since NASA lost its funding, making this a big ordeal. However, after the Moon, they plan on going to Mars. Surprisingly, SpaceX has a plan to get there. In a conference in September, SpaceX announced how they planned on getting to the red planet, Mars.
At a conference in Mexico today (Sept. 27), the SpaceX founder and CEO unveiled the company's Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), which will combine the most powerful rocket ever built with a spaceship designed to carry at least 100 people to the Red Planet per flight. (Wall)
With these types of plans, SpaceX is obviously very ambitious, which means they could easily be the best contender to get to Mars first.
SpaceX plans on getting to Mars in 2018, however, in an interview, SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk says, “The SpaceX CEO, who also runs Tesla Motors (TSLA), admits he's sometimes overoptimistic with his deadlines (sic)”(CNNMoney.) This means that his plans are possibly wrong, and we may not be living on Mars as soon as we think. Nonetheless, there is still Boeing. Boeing is actually more experienced in space travel than SpaceX is. In fact, they even helped NASA beat Russia in the original Space Race. Boeing is currently developing a rocket, which is planned to be able to be used in the 2030’s (CNNMoney). Looking at this, one can assume that Boeing has strict timeline set out for themselves, with some wiggle room in case of things turning sour or going in their favor. While SpaceX’s plans of getting to Mars in 2018 may seem great, Elon Musk loses some trustworthiness, as he has been wrong about his deadlines in the past. With all things taking into consideration, it makes sense to say that, while their deadline could be completely wrong, SpaceX has the best plans for the future because of their detailed plans rockets, and they are taking one step at a time, with them stopping at the Moon before going to
Mars.

While each company has great plans, each owner of both companies has something important to say on the topic of going to Mars.
Starting with Boeing, after SpaceX announced their ambitious plans for going to Mars, Muilenburg came out and said, “First person on Mars. I'm convinced that the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding on a Boeing rocket” (Berger). Boeing’s head of their space department also said “We go for substance. Not pizzazz” (Berger). SpaceX has been known for making things seem unnecessary in their projects and, as mentioned before, have been extremely ambitious. Nonetheless, Boeing obviously has extreme confidence in their abilities. While both quotes do seem to poke fun at SpaceX for being a newer company, SpaceX will also have something to say on the matter of going to Mars. In an interview, Elon Musk said he is putting everything he has into this Mars project of SpaceX’s. This is seen when he says, “The main reason I’m personally accumulating assets is to fund this” (Wall). Elon Musk is taking all of his money and funding his Mars project. This isn’t hard to do, as he was an original co-founder of paypal, and owner of big companies such as Tesla Inc. and Solar City. With Elon Musk’s net worth being at $13.2 billion, he must be investing a lot of money if he really is accumulating assets just for this. Between Muilenberg and Musk, both have said some interesting things. In the end, Boeing might have the edge in this topic. There was
little to no information on Musk rebutting what Boeing said, so it can be inferred that they are possibly right in what they say. Boeing has said all the right things.

While Mars may be in the future, it is always important to look at what was done in the past. SpaceX’s earliest launch was in 2006 (SpaceX) with their company being founded in 2002. On the other side, Boeing has been involved with things in space, “...for the last fifty years” (Boeing). From these numbers, one could infer that Boeing is more wizened than SpaceX is. Boeing had helped NASA with the Apollo missions also. So not only is Boeing older, they have been in space much longer than SpaceX. Since the Apollo missions started around 1969, one could calculate that there is a 37 year difference between the Apollo launches and SpaceX’s first launch. That means, that Boeing has 37 years of spaceflight dominance over SpaceX. Therefore, Boeing is the option winner when it comes to past endeavors.

In conclusion, SpaceX may have a better and more ambitious outlook for the future than Boeing does, but due to Boeing’s experience in the field, and due to the interesting things they had said. It is clear that Boeing is winning this new Space Race to Mars, so far. Each individual company's plan for the future, quotes from each company on the topic, and each company's past endeavors all played a role in making this decision