The Mars race, race to Mars or race for Mars is the competitive environment between various national space agencies, "New Space" and

aerospace manufacturer An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology indust ...

s involving crewed missions to Mars, land on Mars, or set a crewed base there. Some of these efforts are part of a greater

Mars colonization Colonization or settlement of Mars is the theoretical human migration and long-term human establishment of Mars. The prospect has garnered interest from public space agencies and private corporations and has been extensively explored in scien ...

vision, while others are for glory (being first), or scientific endeavours. Some of this competitiveness is part of the New Space race.

Rivalries

The race to Mars involves competition between manufacturers and nations.

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

has demurred in a potential rivalry with

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal o ...

or other manufacturers in any possible race to be first to Mars. It instead sees synergies in possible cooperation with such entities. However, politicians may push NASA into competition with private entities such as

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...

and

in getting humans to Mars. Former president

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

has planned for NASA to reach Mars in the 2030s.

has stated that one of its rockets will lead to the first crewed expedition to Mars, before SpaceX or others will land a crewed mission. Boeing is the primary contractor on the U.S.

Space Launch System The Space Launch System (SLS) is an American super heavy-lift expendable launch vehicle developed by NASA. As of 2022, SLS has the highest payload capacity of any rocket in operational service, as well as the greatest liftoff thrust of any ...

(SLS) NASA rocket program that has the ultimate goal of a crewed Mars mission. SpaceX has declined to state that it is a race, or that it needs to race Boeing.

Blue Origin Blue Origin, LLC is an American private spaceflight, privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Am ...

has stated that with its New Armstrong and

New Glenn New Glenn is a heavy-lift orbital launch vehicle in development by Blue Origin. Named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, design work on the vehicle began in 2012. Illustrations of the vehicle, and the high-level specifications, were initial ...

rockets, it may be attempting missions to Mars, head-to-head with the SpaceX Starship. This may result in commercial competition going to Mars.

Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and his British Virgin Group retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The compan ...

has expressed interest in future service to/on Mars. In 2019, SpaceX started to develop their own hardware, the

Starship A starship, starcraft, or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between planetary systems. The term is mostly found in science fiction. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 1882 in '' Oahspe: A Ne ...

with initial launches planned for the early 2020s, followed by a cargo mission to Mars planned for 2027 and a crewed Mars mission in 2029 with the goal of setting up a propellant depot and the beginnings of a Mars base. As of 2023, Starship has not yet reached orbit. Inspiration Mars planned a crewed flyby of Mars using third party hardware but has been inactive since 2015. It is widely thought that NASA and the

China National Space Administration China National Space Administration (CNSA; ) is the government agency of the People's Republic of China that is responsible for civil space administration and international space cooperation, including organizing or leading foreign exchanges ...

(CNSA) are in a tacit race to put humans onto Mars. China is projected to have a crewed follow-up to 2020s robotic exploration project sometime after that; while NASA has a timeline of getting there in the 2030s.

References

{{Portal bar, Solar System, Spaceflight Exploration of Mars Colonization of Mars Spaceflight concepts Technological races

Rivalries

See also

References