Boeing Seen Beating Out SpaceX For Space Taxi Deal INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
By GILLIAN RICH, Posted 11:00 AM ET
A new space race has begun. Boeing (NYSE:BA) is expected to receive a bid from NASA as early as Tuesday to build a space taxi, according reports, beating out Elon Musk's SpaceX.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Boeing will win a contract with NASA to build a rocket to transport astronauts to the International Space Station and back home, as Washington views Boeing's capsule as safer and likelier to be ready to transport astronauts to the space station in the next three years.
Boeing shares dipped 0.4% to 125.76 in the stock market today.
Experts considered SpaceX, founded by Tesla Motors ' (NASDAQ:TSLA) Elon Musk, the early favorite as the company demonstrated a low-cost approach to space flight with its Dragon capsules. Reports expect SpaceX or privately held Sierra Nevada to get a smaller contract with NASA.
Boeing is also teaming up with Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) and Blue Origin, founded by Amazon 's (NASDAQ:AMZN) Jeff Bezos, to build a new rocket engine, according to the same report.
Frosty relations between Russia and America have put pressure on NASA to develop its own engine in case Moscow decides to stop deliveries of the RD-180 engine, which are also used in many military and spy satellites. The U.S. has enough Russian-built engines for the next two years.
The agreement will again pit Boeing vs. SpaceX, as the upstart company hopes the Air Force will approve the use of its Falcon 9 rockets. Their approval was delayed due to an explosion of an experimental SpaceX rocket that used the Falcon 9 engine.
The Aerospace/Defense group is ranked No. 85 out of the 197 industry groups IBD tracks.
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