Boeing only has lies and empty promises about Mars so NASA will not cut off $4 billion per year for SLS rocket

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Boeing CEO has repeated his claim that Boeing will beat Spacex in sending a manned mission to Mars.

Boeing CEO Muilenburg outlined the buildup to Boeing’s Mars mission.

“We’re working on that next generation rocket right now with our NASA customers called ‘Space Launch System,’” Muilenburg said. “This is a rocket that’s about 36 stories tall, we’re in the final assembly right now, down near New Orleans. And we’re going to take a first test flight in 2019 and we’re going to do a slingshot mission around the moon.”

Space Launch System is getting about $4 billion per year from NASA. They have gotten $20 billion from NASA for this and $10 billion for the prior Constellation program. They have not launched anything despite getting about $30 billion and having had over ten years.

Boeing now only has bold promises and lies to try to desperately keep the money flowing.

SpaceX could begin its mission to Mars by 2022. Spacex is scheduled to launch its Falcon Heavy in January, 2018. The Falcon Heavy will have the payload capacity of the first Space Launch System configurations.

Spacex is devoting all development resources to a fully reusable BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) that would have 150 tons of payload capacity. This would be about 1.5 to 2 times more capacity than the future Space Launch System. Space Launch System will not be reusable.

The Space launch situation is flipped from twelve years ago when Spacex was not launching yet and Boeing with United Launch was launching.