JF Mezei wrote:

On 2017-02-27 16:47, Rick Jones wrote:
http://www.spacex.com/news/2017/02/2...moon-next-year



The timing of Musk's announcement is most interesting.
He states Falcon9-Heavy will be second most powerful rocket after
Saturn-5. Is there an implied "at least until SLS flies" or does
Falcon-9-Heavy beat SLS ?


There's an explicitly stated "when it flies". I'm pretty sure Musk
isn't speaking for all time.


If NASA kills SLS and retasks Orion to be a ISS taxi, the savings may
allow NASA to comply with cost cutting AND still have much leftover to
increase budgets for other programmes.


But what would be the point? Orion would just be a higher priced
version of the two commercial capsules.


Musk's announcement may be designed as a catalyst to trigger the end of
SLS and possibly Orion.


I doubt he cares much about either of them, since an SLS/Orion mission
will cost about 10x what a Falcon Heavy/Dragon V2 mission will cost.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney