Elon Musk tells Boeing to put its money where its mouth is over claims it will beat SpaceX to Mars

Vaughn Highfield June 1, 2018

Boeing is adamant that it’ll be the first company to send a craft to Mars, beating SpaceX to the punch. Understandably, Elon Musk wasn’t too happy about that sentiment.

Elon Musk tells Boeing to put its money where its mouth is over claims it will beat SpaceX to Mars

The news came from Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg who, in an interview with The Street, claimed that “the first person to step foot on Mars will get there on a Boeing rocket.”

Musk, channelling his inner Donald Trump, hit back on Twitter by throwing shade at Boeing by simply goading them with a short, sharp “do it.”

Musk has previously stated that SpaceX will be starting test flights of its rocket in early 2019. He hopes that this will lead to manned rockets flying out to the red planet by 2024. Boeing, by comparison, hasn’t stuck a solid timeline on its Mars efforts, but Muilenburg has explained it’s working closely with NASA to get humans to Mars and test flights also begin next year.

“We are working jointly with NASA and building that first rocket space launch system,” he explained. “It’s about 38 stories tall, the first story is being built right now. It has 9.2 million pounds of thrust on that rocket, it’s the biggest rocket ever. We will begin test fights starting next year.”

Competition is, obviously, a good thing for the Mars space race but you do have to wonder if Musk’s goading is really quite the most professional way to show SpaceX is committed to the project.

Mars missions are, seemingly, no longer a pipe dream, it’s something that’s actually going to happen – even if it seems so far fetched to be happening within the next five to ten years. For instance, British astronaut Tim Peake, genuinely believes that humans will be on Mars within 20 years.