Elon Musk Will Eat His Hat, If Anyone Can Beat SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Rockets Before 2023
The SpaceX CEO is so dead sure of his company, he's willing to bet accessory-eating competitions.
After an incredibly successful launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket last week, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was discussing it in further detail on Twitter yesterday. Apparently, he¡¯s not too happy about the comparison between his rocket and the Delta IV Heavy from competitor United Launch Alliance.
Doug Ellison, a visualization producer for NASA¡¯s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, brought up some of his calculations that show, in some cases, the Delta IV Heavy can match the Falcon Heavy¡¯s performance in missions to the outer edges of the solar system.
Musk insisted that Ellison¡¯s calculations must be mistaken and, even if they weren¡¯t, it¡¯s a moot point because the Falcon Heavy is much cheaper. And that¡¯s when ULA¡¯s Chief Executive Tony Bruno joined the fray.
Hey @elonmusk , congrats again your heavy launch. Clarification: Delta IV Heavy goes for about $350M. That¡¯s current and future, after the retirement of both Delta IV Medium and Delta II. She also brings unique capabilities, At least until we bring Vulcan on line.
¡ª Tory Bruno (@torybruno) February 12, 2018
Musk still wasn¡¯t buying those numbers either.
That was three years ago, before ULA cancelled all medium versions of Delta IV. Future missions have all Delta fixed costs piled on, so their cost is now $600M+ for missions contracted for launch after 2020. Nutty high.
¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 12, 2018
The entire argument clearly got the Tesla frontman a little riled up, because he responded to the next comment in his trademark impulsive fashion. Another tweet talked about ULA¡¯s to replace its Delta and Atlas rockets with a new, powerful booster, the Vulcan. While it was planned to have a 2019 launch, the Vulcan rocket's maiden launch has now been delayed to closer to mid-2020 at the very least. But Musk believes they¡¯re going to be held up even further by certification processes. And he insisted as much with a classic bet.
Maybe that plan works out, but I will seriously eat my hat with a side of mustard if that rocket flies a national security spacecraft before 2023
¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 12, 2018
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