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.
