NASA always needs more competition to keep launch costs low and encouraging innovation and it seems like he hasn't been CEO for a long time. This is indicative of funding competition which is a good thing.
This mission is an orbital science mission studying Mars' atmosphere, not the same objective as SpaceX's long-term goal of sending large cargo and eventually humans to Mars. So I think the title might be taking the piss just a smidge.
I don't assume "Mars mission" to necessarily mean cargo for settlement or humans. In fact, that all seems quite distant at this point, so I ignore it entirely unless specific concrete actions occur.
So for many people like myself, the title is perfectly reasonable. The world does not revolve around SpaceX and its purported plans.
They did. It was the Soviets winning the space race that caused the USA to sink everything into the Apollo mission, to prove they could go bigger.
Russia were first to almost every other milestone, first orbit, first man in orbit, first woman in orbit, first EVA, first moon orbit, first (unmanned) moon landing, and many others.
Edited "Russians" to Soviets because lot was done by non-Russian parts of the union, my original reply just mirrored the OP use of Russians.
only if you squint at it while slightly tilting your head and really want it to be acrimonious.
"NASA picks Eric Schmidt's rocket company for Mars mission" comes no where close to implying it was a manned mission while absolutely being accurate in it's a rocket company being selected for a mission going to Mars. You're reading into it a manned mission.
For context, Relativity gained Eric Schmidt as CEO in March last year.
They built a 3D printed small sat launcher which failed it's first launch. They cancelled further work in favour of Terran R which has less 3D printing. First launch probably early next year. First successful launch, probably late next year.
A Mars mission 2028 is not crazy but it's ambitious.
The way these always work is they pick a low-stakes mission to give a new competitor a chance to build the market. If they're on track to miss the deadline badly they'll switch vendors to SpaceX who they know can pick up the slack on a short timeline. And if they do manage to deliver, great.
Link doesn't fit but the argument stands. No billionaire-funded misison to Mars has ever succeeded. Not even SpaceX. You need at minimum an entire space program. Here's a better link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_One
Since SpaceX now includes controlling the Twitter culture war narrative, yes... lots of other things to do for "SpaceX."
I say this as a huge fan of the OG SpaceX, and a space nerd in general.
I was thinking that I felt bad for the OG SpaceX folks working on rockets, and Starlink... with all the distractions. However, many of them just became millionaires. So, what do I know.
Elon is a heck of an economic engineer. I would probably want to be along for the ride.
"Don't read to much into this. It's just a key talent, stable and productive, forming relationships with a key partner, gathering experience that you would think would be critical information to another companies valuation."
Maybe ES' companies gave they a contract stating they assume all the risks and take not a cent unless they succeed, including reparation on failure, just to win the market.
The Saturn V[f] is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon.
NASA is not developing Relativity Space's rocket.
"On Tuesday, NASA said it hired the company to build a spacecraft to house a suite of scientific instruments, launch it into space, and fly it to Mars."
Plus, George Mueller, who managed the rocket team, worked for NASA, not some private company. So did all the engineers.
"The largest production model of the Saturn family of rockets, the Saturn V was designed at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. The program was managed by American George Mueller; technical design was led by scientists relocated from Nazi Germany, most notably Wernher von Braun, as well as Kurt Debus and Arthur Rudolph. This group had developed the first US launch vehicles, the Redstone rocket family, under the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. All engines were built by Rocketdyne. Boeing built the kerolox S-IC first stage powered by five F-1 engines; these remain the most powerful single chamber liquid-fuelled engines ever built. North American Aviation the hydrolox S-II second stage, and Douglas Aircraft Company the hydrolox S-IVB third stage, powered by five and one J-2 engines respectively. IBM and MSFC designed the rocket's instrument unit. "
As with SpaceX and the Commercial Cargo/Crew projects, NASA sets requirements, milestones, procedures, etc., as they did with Boeing et al during Apollo.
> Borrowing from the US Air Force Minuteman program, Mueller formed the Apollo Executive Group, which consisted of himself and the presidents of Apollo's main contractors.
Sorry I could not understand your point through all the snark.
How is using Schmidt’s company any different than any of the other thousands of military equipment programs? I don’t see how anything you said shows the difference.
NASA hired private companies to engineer and design their early rockets? I thought Wernher von Braun engineered the Saturn V rocket after NASA borrowed him from thew Nazi's
