Game On! Boeing Wants to Beat SpaceX in the Race to Mars

SpaceX may not be the first to send humans to Mars because Boeing's CEO wants to beat Elon Musk in the race to the red planet. But how will Boeing do it?

Boeing has a longer commercial flight experience compared to the younger company SpaceX and it has even helped the U.S. get to the moon. This time, although the company is relatively quiet when it comes to the race to Mars, Boeing's CEO said he intend to go "toe-to-toe" with SpaceX in deep space explorations and commerce, according to Bloomberg.

Earth-wise, Boeing presented their futuristic innovations during a conference last Tuesday enhancing current air traveling systems including a hypersonic plane capable of transporting travelers between continents in two hours or even less. Aside from that, Boeing believes it can beat SpaceX in sending humans to Mars.

"I'm convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket," Boeing CEO DennisMuilenburg during an event conference in Chicago.

Both SpaceX and Boeing are working with NASA to develop new space capsules that can transport crew from Earth to the International Space Station (ISS) and vice versa. Recently, SpaceX delivered cargo to the ISS containing a new docking station that will be used by commercial spaceflight companies like Boeing and SpaceX to transport crew to the ISS. Boeing is currently developing its CST 100 Starliner scheduled for a test flight in 2018. SpaceX is also expected to develop its own Crew Dragon, another capsule for transporting astronauts to space.

But it looks like it won't the only similar project between the two rival companies as Boeing is helping NASA with its "most powerful rocket" ever built, the Space Launch System (SLS). SLS will be powerful enough for deep space explorations and potentially interplanetary transport.

Elon Musk revealed his plans for the Interplanetary Transport System that could rival NASA's SLS. Boeing is also an affiliate of Lockheed Martin, another space industry bigwig making their partnership a bigger threat to SpaceX.