Washington Post by Christian Davenport 5/21/2020
No one thought SpaceX would beat Boeing to get astronauts to the space station
One was a venerable giant with a legacy in aerospace that stretched back more than 100 years and a role in every major moment in NASA’s history. The other was a relative upstart that in its early days was derided as little more than a delusional billionaire’s fantasy and that critics said was building its rockets out of wax and rubber bands.
No one thought Elon Musk’s SpaceX would ever beat Boeing to space. Some members of Congress even wondered why NASA would bother awarding contracts to two companies to build capsules to fly astronauts to the International Space Station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Just let Boeing do it.
But from all appearances, SpaceX has won the competition. The Wednesday launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule with astronauts aboard would not only be the first crewed launch to orbit by a private corporation but also a major upset in a new kind of space race. During the Apollo era, NASA was driven to the moon by a Cold War space race with the Soviet Union, but today companies are reprising the roles of nations in competitions that NASA hopes will help it recapture some of the achievement of a bygone era.
One industry official said executives inside Boeing “can’t accept†SpaceX is flying people first. “People are annoyed by Elon — how does this guy who smokes pot beat us?†said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because that person was not authorized to speak publicly. “We have a lot of humble pie to eat here.â€
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/21/spacex-boeing-rivalry-launch/
