I note Musk was talking about the problems the Russians are having. I don’t mean to be xenophobic. Just curious…

Ambitious schedule, but fair enough. I wish them luck.

However, based on that, wouldn’t a more appropriate phrasing of the statement I noted (“Regardless, the Falcon 9 Heavy is a great achievement”) be - Regardless, the Falcon 9 Heavy, if successful, will be a great achievement.

David BE replies: Yes, but that statement was not from the article; it was from a comment somebody posted to the article.

Did I miss somrthing? Has the Falcon Heavy already flown?

(to Jack) VASIMR acceleration would not be noticeable to people - it would still be effectively micro-gravity, and we do not have a compact power source for a fast Mars Transit using VASIMR.
Mars-bound craft would be launched dry from the Earth into LEO and then fueled at a propellant depot.

(to Joe22) Note that Elon admitted that they might fail, and that work has just started on the new concept.

(to Coastal Ron) Based on the April SpaceX News conference:
Notes published at the site:
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2011/04/05/musk-falcon-heavy-ready-2012/

“Realism of $1,000 per Pound to LEO Figure:
– Would need to launch at least four Falcon Heavy annually to keep to that figure
– Confident that the number will be closer to 10 than 4″

What I got from the conference is that the cost is based on the number of launches, NOT on the mass of the payload. You have to use the same rocket for any “Heavy” payload, and the propellant difference is less than a million dollars, so that the $80 million would have been for an order of 10 or more flights, $100 million for exactly 4 flights, and $125 million for less than 4 flights. It is standard practice to offer lower prices for higher launch volume within a single contract.

(to Thucydides) Musk is very careful in adjusting his level of business risk to cover eventualities, and will only push as fast as it is safe to push in terms of using cash. He does not want to lose conrtol of the company.
Most of SpaceX accomplishments take longer than predicted, but they end up providing vastly cheaper space access than any other alternative, which is why he has a huge launch manifest of about 40 payloads amounting to about $3 billion. In this case, the prize of Cheap Access to Space is totally worth the risk of money and effort.

John

I feel pretty safe in predicting that the proposed Falcon X super booster will take far more time, effort and energy than SpaceX is willing to admit, and will be much later to service than SpaceX would like. New technologies have lots of bugs to work out, just ask Boeing how easy it was to get the 787 “Dreamliner” into production, or EADS about the Airbus 380 superjumbo.

Regardless, the Falcon 9 Heavy is a great achievment, and versatile enough that it may end up being the “C-130″ of space; where the weight and volume the Falcon 9 Heavy can carry starts to determine the size of all kinds of payload standards far into the future (just as military planners use “C-130″ loads to make standard logistics packages, and military vehicles are designed expressly to fit inside a C-130 decades after the plane entered service).

Perhaps there are some “cultists” here, but most of us are not in that category. SpaceX has always been forthcoming about the challenges in making these things happen. They have also had successfull launches with two very serious rockets, although some strange people from an alternate universe don’t seem to know that.

Some of the things Musk intended to do, and which some of us were doubtful about, have yet to come to pass, like successfully recovering a first stage of either launcher from the drink.

What distinguishes SpaceX, especially to those of us who have been following space programs for decades, is that they are putting into practice, and succeeding with, concepts that have been talked about for many years for lowering launch costs. SpaceX is the genuine article.