If NASA goes with Boeing for the rocket, they can expect the rocket to disassemble itself halfway into the atmosphere.
You assume it gets off the ground. Starliner is 4 years behind, hasn’t had a flawless automated launch yet, and still hasn’t launched a manned crew, while the SpaceX Dragon 2 has made 30+ trips to the ISS on a fraction of the development budget.
Also assuming the FAA doesn’t ban Boeing from air/spacecraft production. But then again space-X has done unsanctioned launches so maybe the laws don’t matter if you’re making rockets.
How many whistleblowers?
It’s project Orion all over again. The rocket will dump whistleblowers out back and nuke them as a means of propulsion.
In space no one can hear whistles blowing.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
NASA is looking for ways to get rock samples back from Mars for less than the $11 billion the agency would need under its own plan, so last month, officials put out a call to industry to propose ideas.
Its study involves a single flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the super heavy-lift launcher designed to send astronauts to the Moon on NASA’s Artemis missions.
Jim Green, NASA’s former chief scientist and longtime head of the agency’s planetary science division, presented Boeing’s concept Wednesday at the Humans to Mars summit, an annual event sponsored primarily by traditional space companies.
The inspector general recommended NASA consider buying commercial rockets as an alternative to SLS for future Artemis missions.
NASA’s Perseverance rover, operating on Mars since February 2021, is collecting soil and rock core samples and sealing them in 43 cigar-size titanium tubes.
The MAV would have the oomph needed to boost the samples off the surface of Mars and into orbit, then fire engines to target a course back to Earth.
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