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Old February 18th 18, 04:38 AM posted to sci.space.station
William Elliot[_4_]
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Default Cargo launch by Space X

On Sat, 17 Feb 2018, Jeff Findley wrote:

OK I will say what probably everyone is thinking right now.
I do hope he is not sending the ISS an electric sports car as well.
Hides behind sofa.


It's great advertising. When it returns to Earth, it will be a
collector's item. If they've just thrown the car away, it's a
stupid stunt ruining the company's reputation.

Very funny.

If NASA had given him a payload, any payload, to launch, we wouldn't be
having this conversation about the stupid car versus a hunk of concrete
or other mass simulator.

http://thehill.com/opinion/technolog...save-nasa-and-
the-future-of-space-exploration#.WnzajuIgpEw.twitter

https://www.geekwire.com/2018/nasa-p...-heavy-garver/

I'd trust Lori Garver on this issue. She was Deputy Administrator of
NASA. I'm sure NASA management immediately passed on the offer (with no
official paper trail) due to the politics of "heavy lift", SLS, and
Congress.

Falcon Heavy is a clear threat to SLS. Orbital assembly will be
needed for Mars missions anyway. No hardware has been designed yet,
so which launcher it flies on doesn't really matter either. Also,
launching bits in slightly smaller chunks 2x or even 3x more often
on Falcon Heavy will still be much cheaper than launching on SLS.