Avatar2go wrote:zanl188 wrote:
So if no payload will Bruno attempt to out Musk Musk? What might he launch? A horse would be cruel…..
No, no stupid publicity stunts that pollute the solar system with space junk, which doesn't even follow the intended trajectory. That's entirely a Musk brand. ULA would use a dummy payload that would be destroyed on re-entry in a responsible way, if no useful payload is available.
As you will see from other threads, notably the twitter one, I am no Musk can do no wrong fanboy, however that Tesla launch on Falcon Heavy merely replaced what would also be a lump of something for ballast, which presumably also would have achieved escape velocity.
More importantly, it had a tangible effect of exciting renewed interest in space, which frankly the ISS does not, unless a whole new spacecraft is now serving it, with the same eye on PR.
PR was/is as important for NASA, it's virtually in the job description of it's staffers, certainly the organization from it's formation.
Or as long term space exploration advocate and veteran of the US industrial space complex Robert Zubrin put it, 'Falcon Heavy was a shot heard around the world'.
A certain long term PR addict is about to launch from the UK, a rocket, well over the Atlantic on a 747.
That's something useful I guess, hardly new, I can remember when an L1011 did something identical.
But that's not what the average member of the public think of with Branson and space, they think of are his suborbital tourist flights he's been promising for 15 years, it took 14 to do one but none since.
Because unlike Musk, who had learned/taught himself a lot of the engineering, he just sticks to stunts and attaches his brand to others efforts.
