How SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch SHOCKED NASA Scientists 2023! Huge thanks to: Matthew/ \Ryan: null ======= This is Falcon Heavy. It costs $90m. For a mere $1b a year, or about 4% of NASA’s budget, we could launch it to every planet in every launch window. And that’s before the bulk discount. One may criticize the Falcon Heavy rocket for having a short launch manifest, as it has only four launches in five years. There just aren't that many commercial customers right now for the heavier-lift rocket when a cheaper Falcon 9 or another medium-lift class of booster will suffice. But when one considers the more extreme cases—such as big Department of Defense missions to geostationary orbit or potential human exploration plans—the Falcon Heavy shines. And indeed, even after SLS launched, this monster still proves itself to be an engineering masterpiece, shocking NASA scientists. Find out the real reason behind this in today's episode of Alpha Tech: When it was envisioned in 2010, NASA’s SLS was tipped to be the world’s largest and most powerful rocket in addition to being extraordinarily cheap and quick to build due to ample use of existing components, such as engines and boosters from the Space Shuttle program. Back then the Starship was simply a concept, as was the Falcon Heavy, the first attempt at heavy orbital vehicle undertaken by SpaceX, and roughly comparable in its payload capacity to the SLS. Then, in 2014, NASA administrator Charlie Bolden uttered a quote that would go on to be ridiculed and memified ever since. “Let’s be very honest. We don’t have a commercially available heavy-lift vehicle. The Falcon 9 Heavy may some day come about. It’s on the drawing board right now. SLS is real.” Two years later, in 2016, Bolden said he still did not believe commercial companies were up to the task. "If you talk about launch vehicles, we believe our responsibility to the nation is to take care of things that normal people cannot do, or don’t want to do, like large launch vehicles," Bolden said. "I’m not a big fan of commercial investment in large launch vehicles just yet." How SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch SHOCKED NASA Scientists 2023!