Space agencies like SpaceX Blue Origin and NASA have always been working to take humans to Mars, but they are doing it separately. Should they work together to achieve that?
SpaceX, Blue Origin, and NASA
SpaceX, ( in full Space Exploration Technologies Corporation ), the American aerospace company. It was founded by the entrepreneur Elon Musk. The Company managed to make many remarkable achievements over the years. For instance, it has performed about 21 launches, representing around 20% of roughly 100 worldwide launches within two years only.
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It was the only privately-owned company that transported humans into space. Also, it promises to send them to Mars in the upcoming future.
Its first launch of “the Falcon 1” rocket began in 2006. It is a two-stage liquid-fueled spacecraft, designed to send small satellites into space. Plenty of orders for Falcon 1 along with Falcon 9 (the vehicle that made use of artificial intelligence), granted SpaceX millions of dollars.
Furthermore, the cooperation between Nasa and SpaceX has been shown to have saved Nasa millions of dollars taking into consideration the development costs of rockets that are cheaper than if produced only by Nasa.
What makes SpaceX stands alone?
In fact, SpaceX became the first commercial company to release a spacecraft capsule called Dragon into orbit. SpaceX was successfully able to return it to Earth. Dragon even made history when it became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station (ISS), a permanently crewed, multinational space laboratory in low-Earth space to which it successfully delivered cargo.
Why NASA likes SpaceX
NASA is depending more and more on SpaceX to fulfill its dreams of exploring space. They do very different things and rely on each other for achieving success. Recently, SpaceX won a $2.89 billion contract, declaring its right in providing a moon lander for NASA in order to use it in its crucial mission of transporting humans to the moon’s surface.
SpaceX wasn’t obliged to build the lander all by itself; Dynetics and Blue Origin had also been working on a prototype. Nasa gave the three mentioned companies preliminary contracts but later on, NASA decided to accept two bids for the mission. But Blue Origin Co and Dynetics of Huntsville didn’t make the cut.
Can SpaceX, Blue Origin and NASA cooperate?
According to The Washington Post, NASA could afford Elon Musk’s company proposal only. The thing that triggers both companies Dynetics and Blue Origin to file a protest to the Federal Government Accountability Office, challenging SpaceX for being the builder of the lander that is returning American astronauts to the moon.
That means NASA’s Space Launch System rocket will take astronauts to the Moon’s orbit, folded safely inside an Orion crew module. After that, these astronauts will be transferred to SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft, so that they can descend to the Moon’s surface. Later, by finishing their science, they will use it again to ascend back to the Orion module and fly home.
Blue Origin’s rocket, the New Glenn, is tempting to launch this year. It will be powered by an engine developed by the company itself too, named the BE-4. Blue Origin is working for it. It has so far flown suborbital rocket flights and is in the early stages of assembling its first rocket capable of reaching space.
What do Space experts think about SpaceX and Blue origin?
Blue Origin’ parent company Amazon’s cloud unit, AWS unveiled a new space business domain, called Aerospace and Satellite Solutions business segment. Its main goal is to bring AWS services to space enterprises and the satellite industry. It aims to help them with spaceflight operations and reimagine space system architectures and launch services that process space data on the Earth planet. Also, it helps maintain secure, flexible, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud solutions for orbit missions.
Furthermore, it has developed a suborbital capsule system, making use of the reusable rockets’ technology with vertical takeoff and landing. It even managed to make a two-stage orbital launch vehicle with New Glenn. So that, it could send astronauts to the moon again in the future. In addition, Blue Origin’s partners have decades of orbit experience so far.
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SpaceX vs Blue Origin proposals to NASA
There is a competition indeed. NASA’s evaluations of the two bids of Blue Origin’s and SpaceX’s proposals from the technical perspective were “acceptable”. Dynetics’s rating got lower, as “marginal.” SpaceX’s management was considered as “outstanding.” While Blue Origin and its partners were judged, “very good,” the same as Dynetics.
NASA had not claimed a preference for multiple companies using 39A and denied the protest. SpaceX now uses the launchpad for missions to the space station. That is where the Starship trips to the moon would likely begin.
Kathy Lueders, NASA’s associate administrator, stated that choosing one company to build the first moon lander was the “best strategy” at this time. Actually, startup space companies have proved their ability to compete with and in some cases upstage their larger counterparts
The Government Accountability Office has about three months to make a decision on the protest. Which company is going to win the contract eventually in your opinion?
In spite of their following different approaches in the process of designing and manufacturing aircraft and rockets, they are still capable of developing large, reusable vehicles that can carry both people and satellites across space.
SpaceX, Blue Origin, and NASA should cooperate in order to take humans to Mars, soon.
