Will SpaceX Super Rocket Kill NASA's 'Rocket to Nowhere'? (Op-Ed)

Space.com ^ | February 10, 2014 | R.D. Boozer

[EveningStar]

The private spaceflight company Space X plans to build a rocket so big it would "make the Apollo moon rocket look small,"the company's CEO, Elon Musk, announced on "CBS This Morning"on Feb. 3.

The huge rocket would ultimately send colonists to Mars, but what would SpaceX do in the meantime? The company's primary focus right now is giving NASA astronauts access to the International Space Station (ISS) on American vehicles, drastically lowering prices to Earth orbit versus what the Russians are charging, Musk said...

This all begs the question: If SpaceX is going to build this gargantuan rocket on its own dime, anyway, why is the U.S. Congress forcing NASA to develop the less capable Space Launch System (SLS) for many billions of dollars more? ...

[hinckley buzzard]

Yep, thousand plane raids were pretty hard to ignore.

[GeronL]

Saturn V wasn’t big enough for that

[hattend]

This all begs the question: If SpaceX is going to build this gargantuan rocket on its own dime, anyway, why is the U.S. Congress forcing NASA to develop the less capable Space Launch System (SLS) for many billions of dollars more? ...

Isn't Musk a Friend of Barry and isn't Space-X getting some government funding? That's hardly on it's own dime.

If Space-X IS going on it's own, then time to dismantle NASA. Engineers can go to work at Space-X.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 2/17/2014.

Thanks EveningStar.

A re-ping.

The BFR isn't even needed to accomplish the kill -- assuming that a gubmint pork barrel responds to lack of necessity -- the Falcon Heavy should more than take care of it.