This mission is an orbital science mission studying Mars' atmosphere, not the same objective as SpaceX's long-term goal of sending large cargo and eventually humans to Mars. So I think the title might be taking the piss just a smidge.

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dundarious 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't assume "Mars mission" to necessarily mean cargo for settlement or humans. In fact, that all seems quite distant at this point, so I ignore it entirely unless specific concrete actions occur.

So for many people like myself, the title is perfectly reasonable. The world does not revolve around SpaceX and its purported plans.

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sbuttgereit an hour ago | parent | next [-]

To be fair to the original commenter though... the actual title of the TechCrunch article is:

"NASA picks Eric Schmidt’s rocket company for Mars mission, setting up a race with SpaceX"

That title establishes a context in which looking at their relative goals is completely valid.

	▲	FireBeyond 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I mean one would assume / hope that even SpaceX plans to send firstly just craft to Mars, and/or cargo, before large cargo/humans.

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mr_toad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

By that logic the Russians won the space race pretty completely.

	▲	eterm 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They did. It was the Soviets winning the space race that caused the USA to sink everything into the Apollo mission, to prove they could go bigger. Russia were first to almost every other milestone, first orbit, first man in orbit, first woman in orbit, first EVA, first moon orbit, first (unmanned) moon landing, and many others. Edited "Russians" to Soviets because lot was done by non-Russian parts of the union, my original reply just mirrored the OP use of Russians.
	▲	toast0 36 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The Russians got to the Soyuz in the 1960s, so yeah, they won the race.

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dylan604 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

only if you squint at it while slightly tilting your head and really want it to be acrimonious.

"NASA picks Eric Schmidt's rocket company for Mars mission" comes no where close to implying it was a manned mission while absolutely being accurate in it's a rocket company being selected for a mission going to Mars. You're reading into it a manned mission.