SpaceX Nails Falcon Heavy Launch

The success of SpaceX is phenomenal.
Except for satellite transports the spaceflight was pretty much dead after the spaceshuttle program was shut down.
NASA faced budget cuts in the past years and the other space agencies have just started to make their first baby steps (which is good).
Often enough projects were set to be done in 10-20 years but were canceled due to lack of funding or changing political situation.

Private companies will most certainly take a big role in future projects, especially when they are able to reduce the costs and the burocracy behind missions.
You can argue about the sense of future space missions, you can argue about the use of manned spaceflight while probes are much cheaper and easier to get into space.
Ive yet to see a probe or rover that has the benefits of a human hand, the ability to make decisions on the fly and a sense of creativity when solving problems.

Maybe in the future it will change, but at the moment the launch of he Falcon Heavy costs 10 million bugs more than the launch of the Proton M. Next tot hat, beside less probable flights to other planets in the future, there is simply no need for such heavy rockets at this moment. However, Musk shakes the established agencies with his unconventional thinking and acting. He surely inspires engineers all over the world. Great job, indeed

I think the need highly depends on what is available.
The conception of a space mission usually starts with the payload and then the engineers and scientists try to make their stuff to fit this payload limitation.
With higher payloads more complex missions might be possible or even the combination of several missions (e.g. send a probe to jupiter or saturn and drop a mars rover while you use mars to accellerate the craft)
Also if we really want to go to mars someday we need bigger payloads.
Not only that you have to get heavy equipment to that planet... you also have to ensure that bigger playloads survive the entry into the thin mars atmosphere. Without big air pressure to slow down a spacecraft you would have to rely on thrusters and additional fuel just for the landing.
Bringing Curiosity to Mars was probably already the upper limit we currently can handle.

I think the falcon heavy is aimed to cost 1000$ per pound that is brought to orbit. That is significantly lower than anything else available.
However, initial costs are always higher due to research, development, infrastructure investments, reconceptions, etc.
Every failure adds to the costs but the failures lead to more reliable products which reduce the costs even more.

To compare the Falcon Heavy with a Proton M appears to be a bit unfair. The payload of a Falcon Heavy would be a multiple times higher.
The Proton M compares more to a Falcon 9... and even there I wouldnt be sure how to compare them correctly because the Falcon 9 can be used as a reusable rocket or as an ordinary one use vehicle (which increases the payload by almost 50%). The Proton is nontheless still an impressive and most importantly a reliable rocket that gets better with every version. It will remain a backbone of modern spaceflight for many years to come.

Elon Musks Tesla in space.
Dont Panic! on the display.

I wonder how stable that orbit is and which poor guy gets hit by a car on re-entry.

i thought, Starman was meant to leave the orbit ... and enter galaxies that no human has ever seen before

next episode of fast & furious:

btw. rumours say, it wasn't Elon Musk's Roadster:

and then one day in the delta quadrant:

Jus ' realised that is kinda...kinda space junk eh? I thought we already have problems with that

did you just call a tesla junk?

well... that junk is going to mars... or the asteroid belt.... or... the delta quadrant

I am not calling Tesla junk,...I call stuff, that is useless in outer space junk ...

.... which equals a tesla.

Okay okay, I was bit imprecisely . I consider stuff that is useless in outer space, junk, that is already in outer space ... You get it now?

So everything we deposit in outer space in future is not junk?

Btw. maybe in 5 years we can tell how much junk such a tesla actually is. Space wont prevent it from aging.
Micrometeorites will put some nice little holes into it, space dust will slowly remove the paint, the tires and all synthetic materials will lose gases. That probably even changes its course (maybe it really hits a poor guy somewhen). That Tesla might look very different when it gets close to earth next time.

Quote from SWAT_OP-R8R

So everything we deposit in outer space in future is not junk?

Y'know what since I am too lzay to explain the grammar in my sentence more just Strawberry ...