The director of NASA mocked Boeing: SpaceX was looked down upon, but achieved more in the end.

Beijing, September 14 (Xinhua) NASA Director Bill Nelson said in a recent interview that when Elon Musk led SpaceX against Boeing, critics disdained it, but in fact SpaceX has achieved more.

"everyone scoffed at SpaceX and said,'Oh, Boeing is a traditional company. 'well, guess who will make the sixth flight after the first test flight, and guess who is still on the ground?"

NASA Director Bill Nelson and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk

NASA has awarded SpaceX a total of 14 missions and announced in June that it would revise its "commercial astronaut" contract with SpaceX to buy five more manned launch opportunities from the company.

By contrast, NASA has given Boeing six missions, but the company has yet to successfully launch its "interstellar aircraft", which will send astronauts to the International Space Station under NASA's commercial crew program.

Nielsen said SpaceX was "on track" and that its giant starship had left the ground and brought humans all the way to the moon. According to SpaceX, Starship completed static ignition tests and started six engines.

I think the private space industry is very useful. Look at what SpaceX has achieved.

A second attempt to launch NASA's space launch system (SLS) was delayed in early September as part of the agency's Artemis mission, which, if successful, would allow humans to return to the moon.

NASA spent 12 years building SLS rockets. By contrast, SpaceX completed a test flight of a full-size Starship prototype on August 4, 2020 (local time) and hopes to make its first orbital launch this year.